Far as the Eye Can See (40 page)

She thinks for a spell, then she says, “You will go to find your betrothed.”

“No. She’s gone. Ain’t no way she waited this long.”

“But the army. You said the army is going to be after you.”

“I know. I got to take that chance. I don’t expect there’s many of them left at Fort Ellis, and anyway, maybe they don’t know yet what went on in the Yellowstone valley.”

“You should not take chances,” she says. Her voice is a bit softer now, but still I think I should try to get her off me. Gently and all, but maybe to help her move away without awkwardness. I think she don’t know how to disentangle herself. She don’t want to set herself against me, but this ain’t nothing carnal, neither. Carnal don’t enter into it. But when I start to move under her a little, she puts her head back in the crook of my neck, sort of holds me back, then she scoots up a little and puts her mouth right up on mine and kisses me. It’s a kiss that stirs me considerable. Morning Breeze never used her mouth that way, and Eveline never done it like that, neither. I feel my heart stutter and then it feels like it drops down a little in my chest. It’s a good feeling and I hold Ink up against me now tight and realize this here’s carnal as it can be.

She pulls back a little and looks me in the eye. “I must not lose you,” she says.

I just set there a-holding her, and nodding my head, and then she kind of sets up and pushes her hair back and the boy rouses. I think to say:
As long as the boy’s here you’re safe. But don’t ever kiss me like that again unless you want to incite me to considerable passion.
I don’t say nothing, though. I only find a lot to swallow suddenly in my throat, and she sees me take a big gulp of air. Then finally I say, “Damn.”

“When we can,” she says. “The next time we stop and Little Fox is asleep.”

I know what she means, and I feel that drop in the bottom half of my heart again. “Sure,” I say. “Sure enough.”

Even though she is dead set against it, I pack a few things and prepare to head into Bozeman. I have to find out what happened to Eveline. Besides, I’m gonna try and sell three of the horses and some buffalo robes. When I’m up on Cricket looking down at her and the boy, I say, “I won’t be until this time tomorrow night.”

She says, “We will be ready.”

The boy comes over and stands next to Cricket. He touches my boot in the stirrup. He mumbles something I don’t understand, and then he actually smiles a little. I think he might start crying again, but he’s fighting it and being brave. Ink comes over and puts her arm around his shoulders. They really do look like a mother and son to me, and I feel like I ought to take care of them both. I reach down and touch the top of Little Fox’s head. “You mind your ma,” I say. He don’t understand it, and she ain’t his ma, but I say it anyway.

I ride along in the dark all the way to Bozeman and I can’t think about nothing but the way she looked when I left the camp. There was a believing and hoping behind her eyes, a thing between us that was never there before, but now comes at me with the strength of some true fact about living and dying, like knowledge of the seasons and weather and the certain end of everything. I swear, it’s amazing how much a thing can change in a single damn minute. Ink kisses me and now it ain’t like nothing I can remember that claws at me the farther away from her I get. And not just her. The boy too.

Chapter 29

It’s almost dawn when I get to Bozeman. I ride on in and avoid Fort Ellis. I go to the livery stable and leave Cricket there to be fed and brushed. I hand the other horses and the buffalo robes over to the fellow at the stable and tell him to see if he can sell it all to the army. “They’re good animals,” I say. “And them skins will make damn fine coats.”

He looks everything over and agrees. “I’ll get what I can for them.”

“I’ll give you ten percent of whatever you get.”

“I’ll take fifteen.”

“Fine,” I say.

Then I go to the bathhouse and buy a hot bath. When I’m done with it and coming to the street all clean and feeling more awake, I realize I’m getting ready to walk all the way to the end of the street and see if the wagon and Eveline and Christine are still there. I don’t think it’s in my heart to hope that they are but I got to know. That’s what I tell myself anyway.

As I’m standing there in front of the bathhouse, a fellow I think to recognize but can’t place walks up to me and stops. “Excuse me,” he says. “You rented a room from me here a while ago.”

“Here?”

“At Miss Pound’s place.”

I realize it’s Robert. He’s still got the long face, but now he’s got a white beard clipped close to the jaw so it don’t seem to lengthen the face none. His droopy eyes still look half awake. He takes my hand and starts shaking it. “I expect you’d be Bobby Hale?”

“I could be.”

“Fellow at the stable told me you’d be here,” he says. He lets go my hand.

“I won’t be staying,” I say. “I don’t need no room.”

“No, I have something for you.”

“I forgot something?”

“You was staying with them sisters in the wagon.”

“I was.”

“They finally took off for the far west—just a fortnight ago. First week of July, I believe it was, but they left something for you.”

He seems very pleased that he can deliver what they left for me. So I follow him over to Miss Pound’s place. He hands me the Shakespeare book, two envelopes and a box. “They told me to be sure you got these things if you come back here.” He stands there like a waiter expecting recompense. “They waited a long time. You just did miss them,” he says. His face is gray and pitted like a tombstone, and the white beard looks icy even in August.

“You can keep the book,” I say.

“Thank you kindly.”

I got nowhere to sit down and open these things, so I ask him if’n he’d mind me on his front porch for a spell.

“Go right ahead,” he says, and he walks out there with me. I can see he wants to know what’s in the box, and he ain’t going away until I open it. I sit down on a small wooden chair out there and set the box on my lap. I put the two envelopes in my shirt and open the box.

Robert says, “What’s that? Undergarments or some such?”

It’s the gowns I bought for them at Christmas. “I guess they kept the toilet water,” I say.

“Pardon?”

“It ain’t undergarments. It’s linen. Like dressing gowns.” They will be good for cloth but both are way too big for Ink.

I sit there with the gowns in my lap and wait and finally Robert gets the idea. “I guess I’ll go on back inside, then,” he says.

I nod.

“Much obliged for the Shakespeare. Any chance you might want to sell them gowns?”

“No,” I say. “I think I’ll keep them for myself.”

He looks at me funny.

“To trade with the Indians,” I say.

He goes on inside and I gather the gowns up and walk over to the stable. I stuff them in my pack, then set down against the post in front of the stable and take out the envelopes. It’s a letter from each of them.

Christine’s says:

Bobby Hale or whatever your name is—

I knew you would not come back. I do not blame you. I believe it was fate, and think I said so at the time. I knew it would not be. I hope you are alive and that you were not killed by the savages who attacked General Custer. Fate has intervened and we have met a very kind fellow who is big and strong and more than capable. He brought with him two oxen and his family. He has thrown in with a train of thirty wagons, and he promises to take us the rest of the way. My sister and I thank you for your kind help when you provided any. We are returning the articles of clothing you gave us at Christmas, as we believe it would be inappropriate for us to keep such intimate articles from a complete stranger. We buried General Cooney the 2nd of June, in the army cemetery at Fort Ellis. We both hope and pray that you are alive and that you fare well.

Cordially,

Christine Barkley

Eveline wrote:

Bobby Dearest,

I am horrified to hear of the battle and the heroic death of so many. I am hoping with all my heart that you have not been among those who bravely gave their lives on the Little Bighorn. I am crying as I write this. Christine has taken back the gown you got me at Christmas and intends to leave it here in case you are alive. I would not consent to such a thing but that I know it might bring a kind of luck that you may survive to see this letter. I would hate for you to be handed back such a fine gift as though I did not and Christine did not appreciate it. But, my love, I have such bad luck in things of that nature, perchance my bad luck will continue and you will be handed these gifts back, and in the process prove to be alive and well. If you have survived, please come after us on the trail. I am yours, Bobby, if you wish it.

Love,

Eveline

I set there leaning against that post, with the smell of horse manure in my nostrils, and think about all I been through. I feel a sadness in my mind that leaks into something of my whole damn soul. Poor Eveline. She was true at heart and a fine woman for any man. I don’t know if I wish I had made it back or not. It’s a tragic kind of world we find ourselves in, all the time looking for some way to have what we want, hoping for nothing but a reason to hope. It ain’t easy being on this earth for none of us—because we know about future things and what we want or don’t want, or we can be pretty damn confused by both wanting and not wanting. And we don’t know all the time what is taken away and what is given. Sometimes we know what we have been given only when it’s been lost. I don’t know why I am so sad. I got to take care of Ink and Little Fox, and I don’t know what I would do if Eveline come back for me or if I run into her again. She is gone, and with her goes the life I’d of had with her. Maybe I am just sad because she cared for me and I let her down.

I put my head back and try to sleep, but it ain’t easy with the sun climbing the sky and everything heating up. Even setting outside on the ground, the air is still and steaming. I might of drifted off a bit, but then I finally open my eyes to the bright day and decide to get moving. I walk over to the commissary store and buy two boxes of cartridges for my carbine. As I’m turning to leave, I see a newspaper tacked to the wall next to the counter. It reads:

Extra, Extra

Dispatch from the New York Times, July 6th 1876

The dispatches giving an account of the slaughter of Gen. Custer’s command, published by THE TIMES of yesterday, are confirmed and supplemented by official reports from Gen. A. H. Terry, commanding the expedition. On June 25 Gen. Custer’s command came upon the main camp of Sitting Bull, and at once attacked it, charging the thickest part of it with five companies, Major Reno, with seven companies attacking on the other side. The soldiers were repulsed and a wholesale slaughter ensued. Gen. Custer, his brother, his nephew, and his brother-in-law were killed, and not one of his detachment escaped. The Indians surrounded Major Reno’s command and held them in the hills during a whole day, but Gibbon’s command came up and the Indians left. The number of killed is stated at 300 and the wounded at 31. Two hundred and seven men are said to have been buried in one place. The list of killed includes seventeen commissioned officers.

Indians, who numbered in the thousands, led by Sitting Bull, made repeated and desperate charges, which were repulsed with great slaughter to the Indians. They gained higher ground than Custer occupied, and as their arms were longer range and better than the cavalry’s, they kept up a galling fire until the last man of the cavalry fell.

While I’m reading the article, a fellow comes up next to me. I step to one side to make room, but he keeps crowding me. I look at him directly and he says, “It’s a damn shame, ain’t it?”

I realize it’s Nate, the fellow I rescued along with Jake and Daniel. It gives me a start to recognize him. I wonder if he’s talked to Daniel, if he knows what I done. I step back, a bit wary for the way he looks at me. He’s in uniform and looking polished, although his cowcatcher teeth still jut out at me and his thick red hair bulges from under his hat.

“A damn shame,” he says again.

“I guess it is,” I say.

“What’re you doing here?”

“I might ask the same of you.”

“I ain’t been sent nowhere. I been here all along.”

“You got over your sickness?”

“I guess I did. How’d you get to know about it?”

I don’t say nothing to that. We stand there for a spell, then he says, “Wasn’t you with them scouts that went out with General Gibbon?”

“I was there,” I say. “I seen this here battle they’re talking about in this paper.”

He puts his hands behind his back and seems to swagger a bit standing there. He don’t say nothing, but I can see he’s trying to figure what he should do now. “You was there.”

“I was.”

“There wasn’t no survivors.”

“You see me standing here, don’t you? I was there.”

“Well, we’re all going now,” he says. “The whole fort is heading east to have it out with them Injuns once and for all.”