Spirit Wolf (17 page)

“But your people aren't here, old man. Changing or not, your people are on the reservation. You should have stayed there.”

“My people are here. Can you not hear them in the wind, keening their deaths? Can you not hear them weeping at what has come to pass?”

The old man stopped again and looked deeply into Uriah's eyes. “There were people who lived on this land before my people spilled out on the plains to hunt the buffalo. When we came, they moved on. I have often wondered where. Perhaps they went into a hole in the ground with the buffalo. I am an old man, waiting my turn. You have nothing to fear. You are safe with me tonight.”

As Uriah listened, the muscles in his back tightened, as though his body were readying itself for flight. Uriah knew the old man was insane, but yet that part of the mind that still dances in shadows thrown on cave walls played with the hairs on Uriah's neck.

“What makes you think this is your spirit wolf?”

“I have seen this wolf. I saw him when I was a boy about to become a man. I saw him when the trapper took him to Billings. I heard him in that iron cage, crying out his anger and his pain, so I ran to him on the wind. I wept in my heart to see him so humiliated. But I watched and I waited. I was there that night he fought the giant dog. And afterward, I felt each blow the trapper struck. I felt the rope tighten about the wolf's neck, choking off his life. I felt each jolt of the wagon as the trapper carried him to his cabin.

“So I ran there, too. I was waiting when the trapper came. He was still crazy. He pulled the wagon around the cabin, and I wondered how he would unload the wolf. He did that as he did all things—cruelly. He tied a rope to the cage and then tied the other end to a tree behind. He whipped the horse, and she lurched ahead, pulling the wagon out from under the cage. It fell with a great crash, and for a moment, I thought it would break. But it held, and the trapper laughed, a wild crazy laugh. He poked the wolf with sticks, torturing him, and danced around the cage as though he were crazy. I would have killed the trapper, but for that. I did not want to kill a crazy man.

“The trapper was up late that night, drinking whiskey and goading the wolf. Then he went into the cabin. I listened until I heard him snoring, and then I walked up to the cage. Spirit Wolf watched me. He knew me. Whenever the trapper took the canvas off the cage in Billings, the wolf would search the crowd for me. I was always there.

“I opened the cage, and the wolf thanked me. I thought he would go into the cabin then and kill the trapper, but he walked down along the creek, waiting there to see if the trapper was crazy enough to follow. The next morning when the trapper saw the wolf was gone, the smell of his fear almost made me gag, but the trapper followed because he had to, or live in fear for the rest of his life. I saw him walk to where the wolf was hiding, and I watched the wolf kill. I felt his teeth slit the trapper's soft belly, and I smelled the trapper's guts spilling on the ground. I felt the wolfs happiness while he watched the trapper die. He was so happy, I wanted to laugh. We both waited until Flynn came, and then we ran away on the wind, laughing together at the joke we had played on the trapper.”

The old man began wheezing again, and the sound of it made Uriah's skin crawl. “How can you laugh at something like that?”

But even as he asked, Uriah knew the answer. He couldn't apply rational standards of behavior to the old man. The old man lived in an irrational, insane world.

The old man looked at Uriah, his eyes glittering in the lamplight. “Because I laughed, I no longer hated the trapper. There are things I cannot laugh at. They hurt me deep in the heart. I cannot laugh when I think of my woman and the children. And you cannot laugh when you think of your father and your grandparents, so it is best that we laugh at the things we can.”

“Old man,” Uriah said softly. “The wolf is not a spirit wolf. He does not speak to you, and you did not run here on the wind. Your mind is old, and it plays tricks on you.”

“Maybe,” the old man said, reaching again for Uriah's feet. His toes were black, bruised by the ice crystals in the flesh. The flesh was swollen, too, stretching the skin tight. The old man put more salve on Uriah's feet and hands and then on Nash's. “Your feet and your hands will be sore in the morning. It is best that you do not walk much, but you should move your fingers and toes.”

Then he stopped for a long moment, his head down, with the long, white braids drooping past his face.

“You must remember this, boy,” he said, without looking up. “You must remember what I have said to you. You are seeing the passing of a time. There is no one left to remember this but you. It is important that you know what you see. I am an old man. I know of the white man's heaven. I know of the white man's God, the great goodness that He is. The blackrobes taught me. But I would not fit in the white man's heaven. People would hold their noses and tell me they can't stand the stink of Indians. In the white man's heaven, I would be alone. My father and mother would not be there. In the white man's heaven, I would be Light-fingered Old Buck. I am Wolf Runs on the Wind.

“The wolf grows weaker as I do, and lonesome for the spirit people. When I die, there will be no one for him to call in the night. There will be no one to listen to his loneliness on the wind. You ask me why I came here. I came to see the wolf die. I came to see the passing of another time on this land, and my heart is on the ground.”

And then the old man began singing. His voice keened with the wind. It spoke with an emotion he denied himself in the telling of his story, and tears came to Nash's eyes. The sound was as primal as life. It drummed in Nash's ears, and he felt himself carried by its beat. He felt the pain and loneliness of the old man, and his resolution, too. Finally the old man was quiet.

“What were you singing?”

“I was singing of what has been and what will be.”

Wolf Runs on the Wind reached beneath his robe, and Nash remembered the ugly knife hidden there. The old man slipped the strap over his head, pulled the still-sheathed weapon out, and handed it to Nash. “I will have no need for this. I would like you to have it. Perhaps it will help you remember that once I was here.”

The old man lay down, and in a moment the soft sound of his breathing filled the lean-to.

Sleep did not come so easy to Nash. He lay in the lean-to with the smell of smoke and sage and pine and thought about what the old man had said. He was still thinking about it as he fell asleep.

I came to see the wolf die.

10

Nash awakened the next morning with a start. Something was wrong, but he didn't know what it was. Light! It was light, and he hadn't milked Bess. Why hadn't his father called him? He would be late for school.

But Nash's first movement under the blankets brought him back to reality. The pain in his feet and hands spurred his mind. The storm and the night with the old man came back to him in bits and pieces, building in patches until he remembered all. But just to be sure he wasn't dreaming, Nash opened his eyes.

The lean-to was empty, and cold, still smelling of smoke and sage and pine. Nash slipped out from under the covers and raced the cold to get dressed, but he lost. His feet and hands were puffy and weak. Forcing his swollen feet into his boots with weakened hands required great effort. He tried to tie his laces, but the resulting knots were big and loose, and Nash knew they wouldn't hold if he had to do any serious walking. He prayed that he wouldn't have to.

The cold outside took his breath away. Uriah and the old man were sitting beside the fire. They had built a heat reflector on the other side of the flames, and as Nash came nearer, he felt the warmth. He settled down on a log beside his father.

“Cold,” Nash said.

“Flynn says it's forty-five below zero this morning,” Uriah replied. “But there's no wind. Thank heaven for that.”

“Anybody caught out?”

“Just us.” Uriah reached for the coffeepot, pouring the thick, steaming liquid into his cup. He handed the cup to Nash. “Might warm you up a little.”

Nash took the coffee gratefully. He didn't particularly like coffee, it was too bitter for his taste, but this morning it was nectar of the gods.

While Nash was sipping the coffee, Uriah pulled the cooking utensils out of the canvas sack and set the frying pan to warming over the fire. The store of sidepork was almost exhausted, and Uriah held what was left in his hands a few moments, weighing its importance before filling the pan with meat. A minute later, the pork was frying in its own grease, and Uriah was liberally sprinkling the spattering concoction with salt and pepper.

“That's it,” Uriah said, passing the slices of meat around the fire. “No more sidepork. But we've got enough bread left to make this a meal.”

The bread was frozen almost solid, and Uriah's knife stuttered its way through each slice. The old man waved the food away at first, but Uriah insisted, and soon he was dabbing the bread in the grease with as much enthusiasm as the other two.

The enthusiasm ended a moment later with the arrival of Bullsnake. “Heard you got caught out in the blizzard,” he said directly to Uriah. “I always knew that farmers were stupid, but that takes the cake. You should look to getting yourself a new papa, kid. This one's dumb enough to kill you.”

Nash was watching his father's eyes, but Uriah seemed intent on the fire.

“Is it time?” Uriah said softly without looking up.

“Time?” Bullsnake asked. “I don't know what you're talking about. I just came over here because my nose was itching. I wanted to know why that was.”

“And now you know?”

“Yeah. The smell comes from a dirty old buck and two injun-lovers. You stink up this camp, Brue—you and your kid and your Sunday-go-to-church act. You figure this old man is your key to the pearly gates. That's bullshit, Brue, and so are you. I don't like you, and I don't like your kid, and I don't like this old man. You and I are going to tangle, but not today.”

Bullsnake stood wide-legged, watching his words bump against the silent group by the fire. “Why aren't you laughing now, Brue? Last time I saw you, you were having a good old time at my expense. You don't think I'm so funny now, do you, Brue?”

Bullsnake turned to Nash with a sneer. “Your daddy's bullshit, kid. You stick around him long enough, and you will be too. He'll keep you around and work you to death if you let him, and beat you to death if you don't. You can't count on anybody or anything, kid. You'll just get kicked in the teeth.”

The old man spoke from across the fire. “Is your father not dead?”

“Yes,” Bullsnake said. “He's dead.”

“You waste your time fighting with a dead man,” the old man said.

Bullsnake jumped as though he had been struck. “Old man, I didn't even know you could talk until just now. It would have been a lot better for you if I had never found out.”

Bullsnake started for the old man, and Uriah rose to meet him.

“Stop!” The voice was low, raspy and cold. William Maxwell was standing there.

Nash remembered what Flynn had said that first day:
“Watch out for him. He's about half crazy, and he's handy with a knife. Bullsnake struts his stuff when Maxwell's backing him up.”

But this time Maxwell wasn't backing him up.

“We've got a wolf to kill,” he said in the same cold raspy voice.

Bullsnake moved for the first time since Maxwell had spoken. “You're lucky, old man. You, too,” Bullsnake said, nodding at Uriah. “But your luck won't hold long after I get back. If I was you, I'd pack up and get out of here.”

“If I were you,” Uriah said, “I'd practice keeping my mouth shut.”

Bullsnake reached down as though he were going to pick up something heavy, but when he straightened, there was nothing at the end of his arm but a fist headed for Uriah's jaw. It didn't complete its journey, blocked in midswing by Maxwell's “No! Later.”

Maxwell turned his back on the scene and walked away as though there were no question in his mind that Bullsnake would obey, and Bullsnake did, muttering warnings to Uriah about what would come.

The three were quiet for some time, and then Nash spoke. “Are we going out this morning?”

“No,” Uriah said. “We need the rest, and the horses do too. This snow is just like powder. If a little wind came up, we'd be caught in a ground blizzard. I'm not ready for that. Are you?”

Nash shook his head.

The old man, hidden again in the folds of his buffalo robe, spoke. “The blizzard is over. It will begin warming this afternoon. But you should rest for a few hours and stay warm.”

“How can you tell it's going to be warm?” Nash asked.

“Can you not feel it?”

“All I can feel is a fire in front and a cold behind.”

The old man began wheezing again, and Nash was pleased that he had made Wolf Runs on the Wind laugh.

Uriah was still grinning, as he stood and stretched in the frigid air. “Going to give the horses another look-over and some more oats,” he said.

Uriah walked toward the corral as though he were being very careful not to crush the snow beneath his feet. He favored his toes as he walked, taking his weight on his heels. It appeared that he was walking on stilts.

“Your father is a good man. If we had won the war, he would have made a good Cheyenne. But we would have been forced to keep him on the reservation for a few years until he learned our ways.”

The old man chuckled again, but Nash didn't. He had never considered the Indian reservations in that context before, and the idea captured his imagination.

“Your father is a man. He
knows
what is possible and what is not. So when I tell him that the spirit wolf calls to me on the wind, he knows that it cannot be so. When I tell him that I run on the wind, he knows that this is also not true. So your father thinks that I am either a liar or a madman. I should be content that he thinks me mad.”