Scarlet Plume, Second Edition (32 page)

She decided she had better have some kind of weapon handy. Yet search around as she might, she found nothing, no stick or branch, not even a loose stone.

She recalled the lump under her shoulder in the night. She scratched into the mat of cedar twigs and after a moment unearthed it. A bone. She held it up. It had the look of a human thighbone. It would make a considerable weapon.

Something drew on her eyes to look into the shadow of a water-honed recess.

“Eii! No wonder that was a human bone!”

A chalk-white skeleton sat looking straight at her. There was a wild grin on its face. Fragments of a buckskin shirt still clung to its shoulders and forearms. A war club lay in its lap and war feathers hung adraggle from the base of its skull. Some tribe long ago had buried a beloved chief in the cave with full tribal honors.

“Yii! Dear Lord!”

She looked quickly into each of the dark recesses around her. Thank God. There weren’t any other skeletons quietly staring at her.

The cave wasn’t large, about as big as a hall in an ordinary house, with several short cul-de-sacs to the right and left. The walls of the cave were flesh red and as smooth as the ventricles of a heart. She could not for the life of her imagine how the walls of the cave could have been formed to be so snake smooth.

“Unless it was scoured by an ocean of grit. Millenniums of it.”

She became aware of another source of light behind her. It came from a curving passage. Perhaps it was a second entrance to the cave. It had to be.

“Because this is no place for a Christian.”

Scrambling to her feet, she decided to explore it. The passage was narrow, and low, and she had to go on hands and knees to get through it. Once she almost got stuck, but by some adroit wriggling, and keeping calm, she made it. Another time she had to cross a tiny running spring. She stopped for a cool, refreshing drink.

Presently she came out on a ledge. Far below, at the foot of a sheer red cliff, water boiled in a series of reversing whirlpools. Looking across at the sandbar on the other side of the creek, she saw that the flash flood had subsided considerably at that.

With the wolf still waiting for her to emerge above, she wondered if she couldn’t work her way down the sheer cliff, find handholds and toeholds in its face somehow, and after that swim for it and land on the sandbar. The other side of the canyon wasn’t very steep and she saw she could easily climb it. With luck she could be across and gone before the big wolf became aware of what had happened.

Another passage loomed up on her right. It resembled a huge artery. It occurred to her the passage might lead to yet another outlet, lower down and nearer the level of the creek bed. She decided to try it.

The new passage was pitch dark for a dozen feet, then opened out on a narrow, deep cut. The cut led steeply down toward the boiling creek. Though the cut was but a yard wide, enough sunlight fell into it to encourage a few chokecherry shrubs. Near the bottom dangled a thick grapevine. Here was her chance.

She descended the thin cut with care. Her toes felt the cold of the damp rock through her moccasins. She grabbed at shrubs, sharp projections, narrow cracks for handholds and toeholds.

About halfway, the cut became so steep she had to back down. She maneuvered carefully. She strapped the parfleche around her belly under her doeskin. She slid over a breast of rock. With her toes, blindly, she reached for a red ledge. But stretch as she might, she couldn’t quite make it.

She decided to let herself drop. But the red ledge wasn’t quite what she had expected it to be. The flat of her moccasins hit the edge of a sloping wet surface, and slid off. She lost her balance, began to topple backward. A scream rose in her throat. Remembering the wolf above, at the last second, she gulped the scream back.

She was going to go. Knowing she would hit rock below if she fell straight down, she gave herself a backward kick with both feet, like an expert diver pushing away from a springboard. Her body arched out. As she began her plunge, she sucked in a deep breath and held it. She made a complete somersault in free fall before sudsing water abruptly appeared beneath her nose. She slipped in splashless, a falling human arrow.

She hit water-honed rock bottom with her hands, lightly. The driving stream tipped her, began to carry her off. She righted, got her head up, and opened the surface above. She changed air in one quick breath. She bobbed along. An underwater rock hit her hip a glancing blow.

A whirlpool sucked at her. Before she could do anything about it, the whirlpool began to swing her around in a circle. It reminded her of a merry-go-round she had once ridden as a kid at a carnival. A snort broke from her. This was one merry-go-round ride she didn’t want, even if there was no charge for the ride. Furiously she flailed her arms and kicked her legs. But she couldn’t quite work free of its grip. She made a complete circle a half-dozen times. It was obscene the way it held onto her, a passionate whirlpool. A short gray log bobbed around and around exactly across from her. She wished she could latch onto it so she could rest a moment and catch her breath. She swam for all she was worth. Still she couldn’t escape the whirlpool’s tremendous sucking action. Her furious paddling only served to keep her from being drawn immediately into the center of the twisting pit. She thought she could hear, over the splashing gallop of the waves, a weird whining
ipp
ing sound. The sound of the centering suction terrified her. The log across from her slowly began to slide into the depth of the twisting pit. It went around faster and faster. On one of its swifter turns the gray log shot past her. It took one more turn, upended, held a moment,
ulp!
went down. Then she truly was terrified. She flailed and flailed. Her soft doeskins became completely saturated with water. They dragged on her arms and legs like sheets of syrup. “Dear Lord, have mercy.” It was like being caught in some awful nightmare. Dark arms from the deeps had grabbed hold of her and were trying to drag her down. And she was going down. She flailed and flailed. Eii! now there was no doubt of it. Like the log she too began to go around faster and faster as she inexorably neared the whistling center of the whirlpool. Why, really! It was as if she were drowning in one of her own nightmares. Frantic, she wondered how she was to wake herself if she wasn’t already awake. Somehow she had to get herself out of this mesmeric gyrating whirlpool. “God!” She fought, knowing she was doomed. What a terrible thing it was to have a true-to-life whirlpool turn into a desperate nightmare. “Yii!”

She was hit an awful thump from below smack in the belly.
Akk.
She was hit so hard she had to let go the swimming and clutch her stomach. Her hands hit a heavy round object, fastened onto it. It was the gray log. After being sucked to the bottom, it had escaped the whirlpool, shot out from under and come thrusting to the surface. The log pushed her clear of the whirlpool, outside the ring of it. It had hit her so hard it almost knocked her out of breath. She groaned. She worked for breath. She groaned. She went under. She rose to the surface. She flailed her arms and legs. She went under. She rose. She went under. Then her chest hit hard-packed gravel. She got both hands under her, then her feet, and to her surprise found she could stand up. She was in water only up to her hips. She had made it to the other side.

She staggered to shore. She managed to stumble up the slow slope of the bank. She turned behind a big red rock, and, out of sight of the wolf, collapsed.

She lay gasping for breath. Her fingers worked spasmodically, digging eight little grooves in the red gravel.

She vomited. Her innards seemed to want to get out of her all at the same time. The vomiting seemed to have a definite mind of its own and shook her like a wolf might shake a cottontail by the neck. Bits of chewed bacon and blood gushed from her.

“Oh, misery me.”

She rolled over to get out of her own scarlet vomit.

She lay a long time. She rested. Slowly the crazy jumping of her heart quieted.

She spoke aloud her mind, in outrage. “Of what earthly good is all this wilderness anyway? God must have had a mad on when he made it. Terrible. Crazy. Some of these little valleys might make a cozy location for a town, all right, like Sioux Falls, like here. But for the rest, it’s all too crazy lonesome to be good for anything decent and civilized. No boundaries. No fences. No sheltering little hills. Just open to all sides to anything and everything that wants to come along. Wolves. Bears. Pumas. I wouldn’t take it as a gift even if they were to pay me. I say, this wild country belonged to the Indian, it fit the Indian, the Indian liked it, so let the Indian keep it. Amen.”

3

She had to tear off four more fringes from the sleeve of her tunic before she found the mail carrier’s trail again. She found the trail at the foot of the Blue Mounds, between the base of the red cliffs and the River Of The Rock, buggy ruts and horse tracks cutting across a short stretch of hard gravel.

She fell to the ground and kissed the tracks. Thank God, at last, at last. Ahead lay Fort Ridgely and New Ulm. Then St. Paul.

She had got lost once during those four days. She had to turn south to get around a huge swamp, and when later she swung north again she began to go around in a circle. A morning sun after a cloudy night got her on course once more. Mosquitoes rose from the swamp so thick she breathed them in with every breath. Their stinging was ferocious. To keep from getting all bit up, she made a hood out of her parfleche to cover her head and neck. To see where she was going she had to take a quick peek now and then. She couldn’t remember Indians complaining about mosquitoes. She wondered if maybe the Indian way of life, sitting half-smoked all day long in a fumid tepee, accounted for it. There were also terrific dews at night, so heavy that water gushed from her moccasins at every step. The humidity was so heavy she could drink dew by drawing blades of grass through her lips. All she had to eat was that last strip of bacon, and rose hips and grape leaves. She remembered Pa saying his cattle always did well on grape leaves.

She rolled over on her back. Out of the corner of her eye she could see the crest of the Blue Mounds high above her. In what now seemed a long, long time ago she remembered how she had run across the top to help the Yanktons drive buffalo over the Jump. A light south wind ruffled the tan leaves of the oaks at the foot of Buffalo Jump. Scent of drying grass hung sweet and fermentive on the breeze.

Meat. She needed meat. Any kind of meat. She was starved. She was so exhausted she could taste dust. A juicy mouse, raw, would be a treat. A real delight.

She was empty of feelings. What was grief again? Angela, Theodosia—had there actually been such people?

She stirred on the hard gravel. It crunched softly under her.

“No matter how I lay myself my bones still burn.”

She rolled over on her belly.

Directly in front of her, on a small stone the size of an egg, stood a grasshopper flexing its big rear legs. It twigged its nose, sideways, twice. A spit of tobacco juice dripped from its green behind.

Her eyes fixed on the flexing legs. She thought she could detect the workings of muscles in them. Meat. In her gaunted mind the muscles of the grasshopper loomed large. Meat’s meat.

Cautiously she moved up a hand, got herself set to strike. She would make a snatch at it, strike as swift as the flick of a frog’s tongue. She took a slow, soft breath; and snapped at it. Miracle. She caught it between thumb and forefinger. She was careful not to squash it. It struggled. Its straining reminded her of a safety pin trying to unsnap itself. She gave it a hot, intent look, then downed it in a single gulp. She didn’t care to taste it. She just wanted the muscles, the meat.

She noticed green flies buzzing around her. Slowly she sat up. The green flies seemed to be interested in her legs. Looking down, she realized for the first time that she was bleeding. The dipping ripgut grass she had walked through that morning had cut her toes and shins to the bone. Both her moccasins and her leggings had long ago worn away. She had patched one worn pair of moccasins with the other worn pair, yet even the combined pair had been threshed to shreds. The leggings hung in tatters from her knees.

“Put an end to it.”

Sight of blood gave her an idea. Carefully she selected a rough-edged blade of grass, and sawing it back and forth, managed to open a vein in her arm. She drank a little of her own blood to blunt her hunger. It startled her that blood should taste salty.

When she lay down again she was astonished to see an eagle hovering above her. The eagle lay on the breeze like a pair of brown drapes wavering on a rising column of furnace heat. Its snaky golden-brown head hung down, a brown eye fixed piercingly on her. Her lying down had startled the eagle, causing it to mount the air a few feet. It had been about to strike.

It was the green flies. The eagle thought her carrion. Pa had often remarked that where you find green flies, there you find buzzards.

A snarl gathered in her throat. Her feet and hands came up like a cat’s, clawing the air. She showed her teeth, ferocious.

The eagle gave her a startled eye, shook its golden head, then with huge flaps of its paired drapes carried itself off toward the heights of the Blue Mounds. A few moments later it lighted on a red crag. It fluffed its wing feathers, settled down to watch her. It could wait.

She breathed shallow. She waited for the meat of the grasshopper and her own blood to restore her strength.

She napped. She dreamed of a fat, perky gopher. The gopher stood erect beside the entrance of its lair. It whistled at her. Then it spoke to her. “You want me? Guess again.” And down the hole it plunged, in.

Something brushed against her. She awoke. Too tired to turn her head, she looked sidewise.

Snakes. Families of them. Hundreds of them. Papa snakes and bigger mama snakes. Baby snakes of all sizes. All had diamond markings and a green-brown hue. Rattlesnakes.

Too spent to be frightened, she watched the wrigglers crawl around and over each other. Some were six feet long; some only two feet. The rattles on their tails were silent. They quivered scarlet tongues at each other as if exchanging lickerish bits of snake gossip. There was an odd air of amiability about them. It took her a while to see this. Her idea had always been that a snake was naturally surly and went around being dangerous most of the time. She watched. Yes, there was no doubt of it, these snakes were having a party, sporting in the sun on warm gravel. They were playing tag with each other. As one family left, another family replaced it. They all seemed to be coming from the river and heading for the stone heights above. Their company was agreeable. She even thought she could understand, a little, why Eve had let herself be beguiled by a snake in the Garden of Eden.