The Way West Part 15

Lije nodded.

"You'd best be callin' on the bourgeois, too, Lije."

"Sure. Who is he?"

"Culbertson, Alexander Culbertson, used to be. Somewhere I heerd that Jim Bordeau was now."

"All right."

"How you, Mrs. Evans? Rock ain't dead yet, I see."

"He just this minute come up. I'm tolerable."

"That's slick. I'll be gettin' along, Lije."

The lead wagons were sinking from sight down a slope that Rebecca figured led to the Laramie. It was as if the wheels were sinking into the earth pair by pair, and then the beds and then the swaying tops.

Lije whoaed his oxen when he came to the top of the hill. Rebecca walked up to him and saw the train winding down and, below it, Fort Laramie, white as fresh wash, with trees waving and shade dark on the gra.s.s and the river fringed with woods. Ntore to herself than to Lije she said, "I never thought to be so glad just to see a building."

"It's Fort Laramie. Sure."

"Not because it's a fort. Just because it's a building."

"It's Fort Laramie all the same."

"You reckon they've got chairs there, Lije? Real chairs."

There was a light in his eyes. He said, "Sure," and cut a little caper with his feet and sang out: "To the far-off Pacific sea, Will you go, will you go, old girl, with me?"

She said, "I just want to set in a chair."

*(missing text from printed edition) .....watched from overhead, looked down smiling and promising, just on Mercy McBee, so that, for this minute, she knew Pa was right. In Oregon everything would be different. Do-se-do. And how are you, Mr. Mack, with your white s.h.i.+rt and sleeves held up with their holders and the look of trouble gone from your forehead? And did you know how often I thought of you, knowing I shouldn't, and looked for you along the dusty line of travel: Did you b.u.mp a-purpose, sir, doing do-se-do?

Music outside her. Music inside, singing talk she was too shy to say, singing talk outlandish that forever was her secret. The soft night around, lightened by the big fire that made little fires in the eyes of the Indians ringed about. Music's got a time to it, Brownie Evans. 'Bout time you learned it's got a time. Let music move your feet.

Swing, Mercy. Step out and swing, arm bent to arm. Saw, Hig, saw your fiddle, you and the dark part-Indian sawing with you. Saw in the night. Saw to the stars. Saw for little Mercy McBee who's joined the grownups now and's scared to speak a word.

Watch, eyes. Watch, stars. Watch, wishful night. Mercy's got a dress with a flouncy collar and her feet are in shoes, and who's to know that once they fit old Mrs. Brewer, who needed help with her chirren? Mercy can dance. Mercy's good turned. I declare, I never saw the beat of her!

Arm tight in arm, tighter'n need be. Hand pressing hand. Men noticing. Important men with clean-shaved faces and solid ways and stout teams and cattle following behind the column. Men noticing, not boys, though boys took notice, too, the young fear showing in them and the young questions.

Howdy, Mr. Byrd. You dance mighty pretty. Howdy, Botter, with your jaw of tobacco. Howdy, Mr. Fairman. You got a clever woman. No, I ain't. I just wisht I could be as clever as her. Howdy, Mr. Gorham. Well, Mr. Mack, if it ain't you again, and where's your wife at? Don't she like to dance?

Bow to your partner and do-se-do and swing. The stars smiling, the night crowded in, the music with the high beat of the bow, the night crowded in, the music with the high beat of the heart in it, the feet moving of themselves, the body moving, and things a-s.h.i.+ne in Oregon. Mercy McBee! Sixteen and dancing and happy, but scared almost to smile. Not knowing what to say. Not knowing how to answer to arms or pressing hands. So used to being biddable that words and wishes said and shown by older folks were still like orders to her. Hard tellin', Mr. Mack, hard tellin' how to act when you're sixteen and all your life long you've done as told. It ain't I don't like you. I do. I do. You're clever and rich, and the likes of you's never looked at the likes of me before, and I got a wanting to brush the black curl of hair back from your forehead. It's just I don't know. Growed up in body and not in knowing. That's Mercy, Mr. Mack, and beg your pardon. Must be, sometime, you had to learn yourself.

The music stopped. Hig laid his fiddle across his knees and put the bow with it and smiled his toothless smile. She let herself smile back, feeling at home with him for Hig was noaccount like folks she'd always known and full of jokes besides and wouldn't take too serious whatever she said or did.

Mr. Mack's voice spoke in her ear, spoke soft while people moved around. Would she like to take a walk? Would she care to meet him out from the fire towards where the camp was pitched? On his face when she turned was a half-smile that made him look like a boy, like a boy timid but with some unsaid notion in him. It was a nice night, he said, still talking low among the voices raised around them. The music wouldn't start up for a while, the fiddlers being tired. Would she care for a little walk?

She reckoned, inside, that she would, while for the moment her heart stood still, waiting her answer, afeard of yes and more afeard of no. She reckoned she'd best as long as growed-up Mr. Mack had asked her to. Mr. Mack, with his dark eyes and lean face and the handsome look of trouble. She would walk proper and talk proper and not think about the ring of hair that needed pus.h.i.+ng back.

Her head nodded to him, and she watched him lose himself among the others. Now she'd made up her mind, it was as if she couldn't wait. She felt the blood tapping in her and the breath high in her throat, and all of her saying I'll come, I'll come. I said I'd be there, Mr. Mack. Please, I'll come.

Brownie Evans stopped her on the edge of the crowd as if she had time for him. "If you're goin' back to camp, maybe I better go along so's to see you're all right." His boy's face was awkward with the words, as if they came hard to him. Looking at him, of a sudden she knew how he was. She knew and was roiled by knowing and a little pleasured, too, and would have dodged around except that in his gaze she saw the naked, humble owning-up of his feeling for her. She was brushed by sadness, and she said gently, "I'll be all right, Brownie," and slipped into the welcoming dark, remembering, until she met Mr. Mack, how his face had lighted at her tone.

"You came," Mr. Mack said softly, as if not quite believing that she would. His hand cupped itself on her elbow, guiding her away from the camp, upstream from it, where people didn't pa.s.s on their way from tents to fort and back. "Beautiful night."

She said a bare "Yes," her throat full with beating blood and breath. "Ain't it dangerous out here?"

"Not so close to the fort. I have a pistol besides."

They walked along and the hand on her elbow slid on her arm and found her hand, and she let him have it, feeling the fingers work against her palm and the thumb warm on her knuckles.

"I guess you think I'm a million years old, Mercy."

"No."

"I feel young, anyhow. Tonight. As young, maybe, as you."

"I don't know nothin', Mr. Mack."

"n.o.body does."

A tree stood black at the edge of the river, and he stopped her there and said with what seemed to her an in-held anger, "n.o.body wants to."

The river made a murmuring by them, and a breeze joined with it, stirring the leaves of the trees. The music took up, far off, and far-off voices sounded. The distant fire was one of the big stars, burning on the ground.

"n.o.body wants to," he said again and let go her hand and turned and brought her to him. She cried out silently while his mouth came hungry to hers. Is it right, Mr. Mack? Is it all right? You're older. You know. I got a feeling it ain't right. It ain't right, but you said n.o.body knows. Her hand laid back the curl from his forehead.

Ground under her, and hands seeking, older, wiser, dear hands; and the music and the dance calls fading in the roar of blood and stars misty with the heat of breath, and pain in her like a blade and pain and pain and eager pain, and the music lost and the sky lost and all lost but this but this but this. The stars wheeled back and burst and lit the sky with trailing fire.

Afterwards she wanted nothing but to cry, nothing but to lie and cry while the night and the music and the voices came again. She felt his hand on her, urging her to sit up.

"I'm sorry, Mercy." There was such a misery in his voice that the weight of it bowed her over. "A man's a fool."

"Don't you be sorry," she whispered. "It makes it worse if I know you're sorry."

"You're a dear girl."

She bent her head against him, wanting gentleness, wanting comfort. "I knowed it wasn't right."

"I'm to blame."

"It's bold to say, but it was liking for you done it."

His arm tightened on her, but he answered, "It can't be love, Mcrcy. Don't you see, it mustn't be love?"

"I know."

She sat for what seemed a long time leaning against him, circling the question that lay fearsome ahead. Her voice was small with fear when she asked it. "Will anything come of it, Mr. Mack?"

He answered quick. "I don't think so. I'm sure it won't."

"Sure?"

"Sure."

"I haven't anyone to hold to but you."

"You'll be all right. I'm sure." He drew his arm from around her shoulders. "We better be getting back."

"I don't care to dance no more."

"I'll follow along and see you're safe to your tent then."

"Seems like I don't want to do nothin' except set here by you.

His hand came back and lay kind on her shoulder. "We better not stay any longer."

She got up and straightened the dress with the flouncy collar and went to him and bent her head against his chest, holding to his s.h.i.+rt with her hands.

"Mercy!" he said, while his arms came around. "Little Mercy!" There was misery in his voice still but also a beginning of something else again, together making a kind of wild torment that she found a.s.surance in. "I'm crazy. I'm not good for you, Mercy. Say no! Say no for your sake! But we could see each other tomorrow night?"

There was a sort of power in the Indian drums that oppressed Brother Weatherby. The devil, he thought, watching the dancers, forever was at his wicked work, so that the beat of a stick on a dried skin became more than a measured thump and a grunted song more than a chant. They became an invitation to violence, to the dark pa.s.sions, to sin. To the idolatry suggested by the dancers' expert imitation of the buffalo.

The light hadn't gone from the sky yet, though the sun was down, and he could make out every turn, every buck and jump and headshaking of the young Indians. They had draped themselves in buffalo robes, to which the horns were still attached, and they leaped and pawed and bellowed to the rhythm of the drums. Standing back with members of his company and watchers from the fort, Weatherby despaired of bringing to these simple savages the wonders of the Word.

He had felt better earlier, after he had held services for the Sioux in the shade of a cottonwood grove. To be sure, the place was not G.o.d's house, where he would have been more effective and at home, supported by the close, familiar appurtenances of the ministry. Out under the vast sky, with no pulpit or Bible stand or walls around him, he felt a little like a prophet of old crying in the wilderness. Still, it had been a good meeting. The Indians, men and women, had been decorous and attentive and had listened with what he took to be interest to his prayers and exhortation and to his singing of "Watchman, Tell Us of the Light," though, of course, they could not understand the import of his words.

d.i.c.k Summers had attended, on request, to interpret the questions and answers that Weatherby antic.i.p.ated. He had listened, grave as any Indian, except that, now and then, an inward smile seemed to lie in his gray eyes. A G.o.dless man was Summers, good in his way but G.o.dless, with the suggestion about him of a superior knowledge and of private reservations caused by it. Weatherby resented the suggestion -there was only one knowledge, and it was love of G.o.d- while admitting in fairness that there was nothing of the disputer or the braggart about Summers. He was companionable, kind, even overly generous, And capable as any company could wish, and Weatherby remembered often to thank G.o.d for sending this sinner among them. It almost seemed to him that if he could make Summers see, he would have done his work for the Kingdom of Heaven. He finished his final prayer and motioned Summers up and had him put the questions: Did the Sioux want to learn the ways of G.o.d? Did they want to be saved?

Summers spoke in Indian gutturals, filling in with what he called sign language, and the Sioux nodded, all of them, men and women alike, and an old chief rose and spoke at length, using signs, too, standing so controlled and dignified that Weatherby would have envied him had not envy been unworthy.

"What did he say, Brother Summers?"

"It's a go. They want to learn the big medicine of the white man.'

Medicine, Weatherby thought. Medicine? For an instant he lid a notion to speak out, to scold the chief for this low misunderstanding of the high and holy, and then it struck him that the chief was right. The way of G.o.d was medicine, medicine for the suffering soul. He made an inward note to use the ill.u.s.tration with white congregations.

"What else, Brother Summers?"

"He says they figure the Book of G.o.d will keep meat in their lodges and help 'em against their enemies."

"It will save their immortal souls. Tell them that."

"Ain't any word or sign for soul that I know of, unless it's spirit or maybe shadow."

"No word for soul!" Looking at the earnest, unenlightened faces, seeing the rough garments and the poor gewgaws that pa.s.sed for pretties, Weatherby thought both souls and bodies were rude and graceless. He felt a sudden, overflowing sadness for these simple folk, a compa.s.sion that bent him over, a lovingkindness such as G.o.d Himself must feel at sight of the wretched creatures of earth. Be long-suffering, please, 0 G.o.d, he asked. Remember, I pray Thee, they have not had opportunity to know Thee. Breathe the influence of Thy spirit on them and make them Christians. Let judgment be pa.s.sed on the worldly and on the deists and the swearers, if Thou wilt, but not yet on these, Thy simple children.

It filled him with a wondering love sometimes and sometimes with a wrong impatience that G.o.d should be so long-suffering with whites who had the choice of righteousness or sin and chose to drink and to blaspheme and to commit, he supposed, outrages of the flesh. Let them have their reward, he asked, while he studied the grave faces before him. And then he reconsidered and asked: Let me be not hasty in judgment, Lord, remembering it is for Thee in Thy love and righteous anger to dispose. Let me recall my own time of temptation and of sin and thank Thee that it has pa.s.sed and Thine own spirit is strong in me. Let me do Thy work with humility and understanding. Let me be long-suffering, too.

After the questions and answers the Indians had come to him solemnly, one by one, and wrung his hand, and never had he been so sure that the field was right for the tilling.

Now, while the young warriors pranced and bellowed, doubt entered his mind. Grown men imitating beasts! Others chanting to the devilish tap of the drum! And all encouraged by the white people standing aroundl Behind him someone said, "Them Injuns are pretty G.o.ddam good at it."

A miserable business, he thought, while discouragement washed over him. With the glories of G.o.d all around, with the wonder of the night firmament coming into sight overhead, with death and judgment waiting, the Indians could find imthing better to do than to ape brutes, and the whites nothing better than to watch and enjoy. He had heard that the American Fur Company now frowned on the use of spirits in trade, but he smelled the ugly smell of whisky.

The dance stopped and another one started, the dog dance his time, and Weatherby watched for a little while, only half seeing, and then turned and walked away, tightening his arm against the Bible that was his comfort and a.s.surance.

Night had fallen finally. Away from the firelighted dancing place it lay thick and soft, tempting in itself, he thought despairingly, recalling the days of his weakness. It was in G.o.d and only in G.o.d that the soul found mastery over the flesh; and it was the mark of G.o.d's infinite wisdom that the greater the heat of blood the greater the saving and triumphant r ighteousness. If only he could open the blind eyes of white men and red! He knew the way of salvation, but now, for this moment, he was depressed by the knowledge of sin and the magnitude of his task. G.o.d had called him to go afar, and he ~vas obeying, but with the present feeling of being weak and unworthy. Let the Lord forgive him for faltering. Let the Lord give fire to his words so that the wicked could see the living light.

He was thankful, as he read in the stars the proof of the divine power and omnipresence, that his G.o.d -that the true G.o.d- was not distant and unapproachable, to be propitiated by Romanish counting of beads, to be communicated with through the dubious intermediaries that Daugherty professed to believe in. G.o.d was close and attentive, ever ready to hear the prayers of the penitent. If the good man searched in his heart he felt Him there.

To Weatherby's right, off the line of travel from camp to dance, a figure moved and stopped, almost as if to avoid the meeting, and Weatherby halted and called out, "Who is it?"

"Mack," the figure answered, walking up. "Good evening, Brother Weatherby."

"Good evening."

"Been watching the dances?"

"I find them offensive."

"Doesn't the Lord approve?"

"You joke about G.o.d!" '

"No. I only wonder."

"Have faith. It is the answer to doubts."

"But not to living." The words and the tone to Weatherby's depression.

"We must believe that it is."

"No matter what?"

"No matter what. We cannot always understand G.o.d, for His greatness is beyond understanding."

"I was taught that, back in the Methodist Church."

"I didn't know you are a Methodist."

"Was"

Weatherby shook his head, sorrow deep in him, and the sense of inadequacy, and irritation at this rejection of the eternal truth. "Have faith. Sorrow, difficulties, temptations -they are only to test us."

Mack laughed a short, mirthless laugh. "Everything bad is our fault; everything good we owe to G.o.d."