S
kye and his women thought Mercer would be able to travel at least a little while. It would be good to get him out of the gloomy canyon where sunlight didn't arrive until midmorning and departed midafternoon.
It was Victoria who saw what to do next. She began packing Mercer's robe and then realized it contained memories. She found Mercer sitting patiently, awaiting whatever would occur next, and quietly laid out the robe before him. Skye and Mary swiftly caught on, and joined her.
There, before the explorer, was a pictograph chronicle of events since the prairie fire had destroyed his journal, done in his own hand. Most of the marks scraped into the hide with umber greasepaint could be deciphered only by Mercer but some were plain to anyone. His sketches of the skull, his measurements, his drawings of bones. His record of daily passage through the high plains was more obscure, yet plainly intended to trigger memories.
Mercer gazed blandly at the robe, set hair-down before him on the ground.
“What is this, pray tell?”
“It's your journal, sir. After the prairie fire destroyed your journal, you kept a log of events here.”
“How quaint. I'm no artist, Skye.”
“No, no artist. Neither am I. But each of these little drawings has meaning for you. These mountains here, those are the Snowies, shown from the east. I daresay this is the Musselshell. These figures here are Indians on horseback, wouldn't you say?”
“Why would I do this?”
“You are an explorer and a journalist. I believe you intend to write up your experiences when you return to London.”
“Well, that's an entertaining little twist, eh?”
“Look at each of these, and tell us what it means.”
Mercer suddenly smiled, that famous toothy grin. “That's a good game, but not today, Skye.”
“We'll bring out this robe again, then.”
Victoria rolled it carefully. Somehow, the robe would be the key to Mercer's recollections.
“One last question, Mister Mercer. You're in North America looking for material to write about, correct?”
“Quite correct.”
“You came out the Oregon Trail and left it accompanied by some Shoshones, correct?”
“Perfectly correct.”
“You planned to write about Mormon polygamy, correct?”
“I believe so, but one learns to follow one's instincts.”
“You were present at the moment Mary's family gave her to me as my second wife?”
“Was I?”
“You were curious about it.”
“Who wouldn't be, sir? There's a fine little yarn to be told in it.”
Skye continued to grill the explorer. It was plain that he hadn't lost much; mainly the period from the time his wagon burned to the present. Yet he could not remember either Winding or Corporal.
That was enough for one session. They helped Mercer up; his arms and shoulders hurt so much he gasped, but his legs were all right. Victoria would lead his horse. Mercer could not rein it.
Skye started them up the precipitous trail to the open country south of the river, and felt relief when they escaped that gloomy, mysterious valley of the bones. He preferred the great open vistas where he could see as far as tomorrow, where he could follow a cloud's passage for a hundred miles, where a man was not hemmed by anything.
Mercer began to howl. It sent shivers through Skye. The man bayed like a wolf, the voice eerie and lost. Skye kept his party going, thinking that Mercer's howling would subside, but it didn't.
The explorer was plainly in distress, and Skye began hunting for a campsite. North, the ancient trench of the Missouri sliced through the high plains as if the foundations of the earth had been ripped apart. He descended a giant coulee to a small flat where a spring purled out of a crack in the underlying sandstone and fed thick brush and cottonwoods for half a mile below it before the runoff vanished. It would do.
They lifted Mercer down. The man was fevered, his face ruddy, his breathing coarse. Victoria and Mary silently began making camp though it was only midafternoon. Skye knew he needed to hunt; they were down to pemmican and jerky. There was spoor from antelope and mule deer here, and a calling card from a black bear. He hoped to surprise a deer.
They settled Mercer on his robe. Mary began collecting
wood for a fire. Victoria would soon decoct one or another of her herbal remedies and let him sip.
“Skye, why do my arms hurt?”
“Because they were tied to a pole across your back, straight out, with rawhide that shrank in the sun as it dried. It stopped the blood.”
“Did you do that?”
“Some Sarsi Indians did.”
“But why, Skye?”
Skye's gaze lifted to the ridges. “You had offended their beliefs, sir.”
“How could I do that?”
“The tooth, sir.”
“I have all my teeth but one.”
Skye laughed. “The monster's tooth, sir.”
Mercer exploded. “You'd bloody well not make jokes. I hurt so much I can't even think. My shoulders! If you had my shoulders right now, the pain in them, you'd be lying on this clay weeping. I keep a stiff upper lip, and I don't need jokes.”
“As you wish, sir.”
“Monster's tooth! You low-bred dog! You off-scouring of London's alleys! You damned deserter! You barbarian, fleeing all that's right and proper! You degenerate! You seditionist! Skye, you should have been shipped to Australia long ago!”
“It's Mister Skye, sir.”
“Mister! Mister! You? Mister Skye, is it?” Mercer cackled.
The explorer's manner brooked no further talk, so Skye set about his camp chores. He watered and picketed the horses and inspected their hooves and pasterns. He slid the packs off the pack animals. He dragged the lodgepoles to a level spot where Victoria and Mary would raise the lodge. He unsaddled Jawbone, slapped him on his rump, and Jawbone screeched
and bared yellow teeth, and then headed for the spring water and the thick brown grasses nearby, scattering his wild mares just for the joy of it.
“What was that?” Victoria asked.
“He hurts.”
“Sonofabitch, so what?”
“His memory is returning. He knows who I am.”
Victoria stopped wrestling the lodge cover, slipped close to Skye, and touched his lips. “So do I,” she said softly.
Skye plucked up his Hawken, checked his possibles, and walked down the endless coulee. He felt like walking. He would hunt and he wanted to sort things out. But there was nothing to sort out. Whether from pain or fear or something else, Mercer had turned on him and the trip to Fort Benton would not be pleasant. Skye would do his duty, take the man to safety, and endure whatever the man pitched at him or his women. It would soon be over. Skye's responsibility ended at Fort Benton, and then he and his wives could drift south to Victoria's country, his own country now, along the Yellow-stone.
It was a quiet afternoon, without a breeze, the sort of breathless weather that comes just ahead of fall. The afternoons were plenty hot, but the long eves and nights made this September time pleasantly cool. He struck a brushy spot not fifty yards from camp and found himself staring at a sleeping grizzly, a brown giant with unkempt hair, sprawled in a bed she had scraped clear under some protective deadfall from cottonwoods. He froze. He studied the trees, looking for one he could climb but there was nothing.
She awakened, sniffed the air, and turned her massive head. He studied the area and found the cub twenty yards off, its head up, watching Skye.
He hurried back to camp. It would not do to camp so close to a grizzly sow.
“What?” asked Victoria.
“Big brown sow down there a bit. Cub with her. Taking a nap. Woke up, sniffed, and didn't like us here.”
“You going to kill it?”
“Ten men with ten rifles couldn't kill it, and my gun is the only one in camp. I don't like having horses around here.”
Mary was already undoing the lodge cover and letting it slide back down.
“What are you doing, Skye?” Mercer asked.
Skye's temper was a match for Mercer's. “It's Mister Skye, and we're getting away as fast as we can. There's bear.”
“Wave your arms and chase him away.”
“It's a sow grizzly, not a black. And she's protecting a cub.”
“Well, I'm not moving.”
Skye ignored that, saddled Jawbone, loaded the packs on the ponies, saddled Victoria's and Mary's horses, and helped the women load.
It came time to load Mercer.
“I'm not going,” he said. “I hurt too much.”
“Then we'll have to leave you.”
“I'm in command here, Skye, and I say we stay. If we leave that bear alone, it'll leave us alone.”
“That's probably true. But I'll not take the chance.”
The explorer didn't resist when Skye, Victoria, and Mary all helped him up.
“I don't tolerate insubordination, Skye, especially from a degenerate hiding from the civilized world.”
“We'll leave you here if you want. You and your robe and your horses.”
“I am dependent on you, and loathing every minute of it. Get me to Fort Benton,” Mercer said. “Then I can be rid of you and your unwashed wives.”
Victoria stared.
Skye led his party up the coulee to the trail. The grasses shimmered in the breeze, and as far as he could see was virgin land. But this little party was no longer harmonious. One man had turned bitter. It was like a great cloud bank obscuring the sun.
S
kye led his party upriver on a well-formed trail over high ground. The world was silent. Barely any breeze sifted through his shirt. He watched distant ravens circle and a hawk soar by, looking for dinner.
Mercer rode sullenly, radiating a heat that kept the rest at a distance. They passed from grassland to hills covered with jack pine, resinous in the midday sun.
He kept a furtive eye on Mercer, whose swollen arms and shoulders were tormenting him with every bounce in the saddle. The man rode alone. The women hung back, and Skye kept well forward. No one wanted to be near the explorer.
Mercer stood it for a while, and then kicked his pony forward.
“How far to Fort Benton?”
“I don't know. Maybe fifty miles. Seventy miles.”
“How many days?”
“That depends on you, sir.”
“I want a direct answer, Skye.”
“How many miles do you plan to go each day?”
“Damn you, Skye, what kind of guide are you? Have you ever been here?”
“Yes.”
“Then you should know.”
Skye put heels to Jawbone until his horse pulled ahead a bit. It was better not to respond to a man itching to pick a fight.
“Find a campsite, Skye,” Mercer yelled at Skye's back.
Skye nodded. Mercer was fevered and hurting. This was dry country, with desolate shoals of pine collected on slopes and no sign of a spring or river. They would need water for Mercer. Victoria's decoctions were all that made it possible for Mercer to be moved. She had that splendid knowledge of nature's own pharmacopoeia and was making liberal use of it to treat him.
“I want to rest!”
Skye halted. Mercer tumbled off his horse, unable to use his hands or arms dismounting, and headed into some brush.
Skye turned to Victoria. “Any water nearby?”
“River.”
When Mercer returned, he glared at the three of them. “Well?”
“We'll follow the next coulee to the river,” Skye said.
“Help me up.”
Skye and Victoria lifted Mercer. It was not easy. His arms were useless. They handed him the reins, knowing he could barely hold them, and started off once again, Skye leading his company.
A while later they hit a giant canyon running toward the river and Skye turned into it. This was white-rock country, with crenellated bluffs along the skyline.
They reached a flat with a fine cold spring bubbling out of
a white cliff, and plenty of brush and trees below it. Skye stopped there. This was as close to paradise as a camper could get and there was the promise of game.
“Go on, go on,” Mercer said.
Skye reached up. “Time for you to get some rest. I'll hand you down.”
“Go on, go on, damn your cowardly hide.”
Whatever Skye did, Mercer contradicted. Find a campsite. Don't find a campsite. Stop here. Don't stop here. Keep going. Don't keep going. Skye ignored it all.
This was a good place. Skye rode Jawbone around the meadow, finding thick grass for the domestic and wild horses. He checked the brush, finding no bears or other trouble. He returned to the others just in time to hear Mercer berating Mary.
“Keep your greasy hands off me,” he snarled.
Mary, who was helping him down, paused.
“Get me off this nag, Skye,” Mercer snapped.
Skye stared.
“You do it, Skye. Your women are full of vermin. I don't want them touching me.”
Victoria and Mary stopped cold.
“That got your attention, didn't it, Skye?”
Mercer decided he could dismount himself and almost managed. But he lost hold and tumbled into the clay.
“Help me up, Skye.”
“I think you can stay right there, sir.”
“East London scum. Deserter. Louse-ridden squaws. Degenerate. I thought you were an Englishman. How did I get tied up with this lot?”
Skye resisted the rage welling up in him and nodded to the women. They turned away, collected deadwood, and soon had a fire going.
It was a temptation to leave the man and his horse to fend for himself, but Skye knew he would not. There are obligations and duties and one of them is to get a feverish man to safety, and another is to fulfill a contract. He had promised to deliver this man to Fort Benton and so he would.
They rolled the cursing Mercer onto his robe and dragged him into the shade of a giant willow tree.
Stonily, Victoria began preparing her medicinal tea for the explorer. She had one bark to calm him and a root to mitigate his pain. Skye wished she had one that would heal his distemper.
Mary heated stones she had collected and placed next to the crackling fire. These would be lowered in a small well-greased leather sack containing Victoria's herbs and water. The stones would bring the water to boil and Victoria would have her tea. They had lost their metal pots in the great fire, and the women were resorting to ancient methods.
It was a splendid day but for the sourness emanating from Mercer. Skye studied the horizons, where puffball clouds rose and marched across the heavens and slid out of sight. The weather would change soon. There were mare's tails high in the sky, a forerunner of change. It would turn cold and cloudy, and maybe rain some. Maybe they would have to put up the lodge if the weather turned. Skye checked the site to make sure it was well above any flash flood watercourse. It was well placed, ten feet above the gully that might carry water in a deluge. He had chosen a good place. That was his business. His skill. His way of life. His communion with the whole natural world had meant survival and safety for all the while he had been in North America.
Mercer's distemper spread like a miasma and Skye and his women steered clear of him, keeping out of shouting range. But in time Victoria had her tea, so she filled a horn
with it and carried it to the shade of the willow, where Mercer glared up at her. He sat up, and she held it to his lips because he couldn't use his arms.
“This is an abomination!” Mercer yelled.
Skye heard Victoria responding quietly. She was telling him her tea would comfort him and reduce his pain and swelling.
“Filthy squaw!”
He heard disorder over there and hastened to the willow tree. Mercer's robe was soaked. The horn lay on the earth, empty. Victoria's leather skirt was splattered.
“Get this wahine slut away from me!”
Victoria bolted. Skye stood, staring at the explorer, whose face reflected triumph. The man was enjoying every moment of this.
“Afraid of me, aren't you, Skye. You won't even defend the virtue of your women. I insult them and you don't even respond. I insult you, and you just let it pass. That's because you're a degenerate.”
The bright light of day filtered through the willow leaves, giving the shade a dappled, friendly light. But it was not a friendly place.
Skye patiently considered this fevered man's transgressions. “If I respond softly or say nothing, and take whatever guff you dish out, you'll enjoy it. That would mean I'm your servant. If I say anything at all about your conduct, you'll take it as proof that you're a well-born Englishman dealing with an insolent underling. If I don't seem to mind the offenses to my wives, that means I'm a degenerate, as you put it.” Then he offered his own mysterious response. “Address me as Mister Skye, sir.”
“Mister! Mister! What fun you are, Skye.”
“Victoria will try again to give you some tea. It helps. I've sipped it time after time when I needed help. It's an anodyne for pain. It quiets your distemper. You can knock the horn away again or drink up and feel better.”
“Don't let that pile of filth in here, Skye.”
Skye plucked up his hat and retreated into the clean sun and sweet air. It was as if he had the Black Plague in his own camp, lurking there, impossible, cruel, rude, and full of white men's conceits.
“Don't go over there, Victoria.”
She laughed, suddenly and unexpectedly. “White men are such savages,” she said.
“I will try to help him,” Mary said.
“You'll be abused.”
She shrugged.
Mary dipped the hollow horn into the steaming tea and then carried Victoria's potion to the tree sheltering Mercer, and knelt beside him. There was some muffled talk at first.
Skye waited, ready to do whatever was required. It didn't take long. He heard hard male laughter, a surprised feminine response, and she stormed away. The stain of the tea was spreading across her skirts. She was straightening them as she fled.
She stood in the sunlight, tears welling in her eyes, her small fists clenched.
Skye hurried to her and took her in his arms. “You did what you could,” he said.
“That ain't it,” Victoria said, obviously annoyed at Skye.
“What do you mean?”
“Don't be so blind,” Victoria retorted. “He insulted her.”
Skye felt Mary collapse into him, cling to him, and felt her
tears soak his shirt. Skye held her for a long while but she seemed taut.
Finally, when Mary had calmed, Skye slipped over to Mercer and found him flat on his back on his buffalo robe, his eyes fevered and merry.
“If you touch my women or insult them, I'll kill you,” Skye said.
“But why, Skye?” Mercer asked, his eyes bright. “What don't the three of you do each night?”