Dancing with the Golden Bear Page 4

  Well, hell, the way she joked with the other women, it was, it was even ribald.

  “She’s not demure?”

  She treated the other men like brothers, laughing and cutting up.

  “Soft-spoken?”

  Sam’s wife was plenty loud enough to be heard and to make her wishes known. In her realm, domestic matters, her wishes were not reeds but the trunks of cottonwoods.

  Her manner even changed toward Sam. All of a sudden she was full of hoots and hollers, and even outrageous pranks.

  “Fact is, she ain’t changed a bit,” said Flat Dog. Sam tried to teach him proper English, which Sam had copied from his mother, but Flat Dog picked up everyone’s speech. “She’s just like when she was a kid.”

  Sam raised an eyebrow at him.

  “When she was maybe eight, ten, twelve, she was the family clown. She even liked fart jokes.”

  “But she was ladylike with me. Red Roan too.” Red Roan had been her other principal suitor, the chief’s son.

  “Teenage girls, they have to be careful. There are rules, especially in front of young men.”

  “Now I don’t know what to expect.”

  “Expect our mother,” said Flat Dog.

  Needle. There was certainly nothing held back about Needle, or hesitant, or circumspect. In fact, Meadowlark’s mother’s tongue could probably light a fire.

  Sam nodded.

  “Well?”

  “Well, I have a beautiful, sexy, high-spirited, outrageous, outspoken, and terrific wife.”

  Flat Dog gave him a big grin. “Demanding too.”

  Again, a few days farther down this river, they came on more Indian farmers. This time the brigade was able to trade not only for corn and pumpkins but squash and watermelons. They also got big news. One day’s journey downstream a big river flowed in from the northeast. Jedediah said coolly and confidently that it could only be the Siskadee. And the Indians reported beaver only a few more days downstream. Jedediah observed something that struck him as even more important:

  I saw on these Indians some blue yarn and a small piece or two of iron, from which I judged they had some intercourse with the Spanish provinces.

  California!

  No one knew where the Siskadee went. Lots of American and British seamen, though, had sailed the coast of the southern part of California, and no big river came to the Pacific there. So maybe the Siskadee turned south into Mexico. But California was close, the men could see that. They were missing the fall hunt, essentially, and had almost no prospect of beaver, but …

  The captain wrote in his journal, justifying himself,

  I might as well go on as undertake to return. Some of my horses had given out and were left, and others were so poor as not to be able to carry a load. The prospect ahead was … that I might in this moderate climate trap all winter and also purchase some horses. These considerations induced me to abandon the idea of returning to the mountains until I should have gone somewhat further in exploring the secrets of this thus far unpromising country.

  The next day, when they came on the Siskadee, every man in the brigade was sure they would winter in California.

  Five

  Native Hospitality

  Now the men were grumbling in their two-month beards. They grumbled even while they rested by the stream for a couple of days where there was a little grass. They felt as gaunt as the horses looked.

  As they walked on, though, the going improved. The river valley was wide flats or low, gravelly hills, easy to follow. Indians lived on small farms dotted here and there.

  The men kept a wary eye. These Amuchabas, as they called themselves, appeared to be farmers, and seemed to eat vegetables far more often than meat (Some of them spoke a little Spanish, and Abraham Laplant had some Spanish.) They professed to be friendly, and said their main settlements nestled along the river some thirty or forty miles ahead. But Indians you didn’t know were still Indians you didn’t know.

  Diah moved the outfit downstream slowly, gently, saving the horses. And when he got to the first large settlement, the brigade was treated, he said in his journal, “with great kindness. Melons and roasted pumpkins were presented in great abundance.”

  The men relaxed, but they kept their weapons handy.

  Here, finally, they got their first real rest since leaving rendezvous back in mid August, nearly two months ago. Gideon gave the Amuchaba village an English name—Camp of a Much a Music and Romance.

  That evening they made a real camp, one to spend a couple of weeks in. In the early darkness they ate roasted squash, not any mountain man’s favorite food, but still a treat for tongues half starved. Gideon got out his fiddle and struck up a tune. “Who feels like dancing?”

  Some of the men were hoping to have some fun in the willows later with Amuchaba women, but everyone was exhausted. Dancing with another man didn’t sound like fun.

  So Evans proposed some more song-writing. Everyone entered into the spirit of the thing.

  “I wish we was drunk,” said Gobel.

  “Then let’s just decide to be drunk,” cried Evans. “Every man, just make your mind a drunken sailor.” With that he sallied forth, slurring his words. He began:

  We set out from Salt Lake, not knowing the track

  Whites, Spanyards and Injuns, and even a black

  and went rollicking through the first verse and chorus, ending with the dream of all of them,

  And on to the sweet blue sea.

  “Our male chorus is not together,” said Evans, “because we have forgot most of the words.” He rehearsed the next verse with them, teaching them to use the rhymes “mud” and “thud” as aids to memory.

  The captain saw a river, our hearts came down thud

  The river was dry, and we got to drink mud.

  As they went on, Sam heard Sumner tossing out some words he knew were wrong, just for fun, and because the captain was close enough to hear. “Captain Smith was a lecherous man, a philandering man was he.”

  Jedediah was having too much fun to frown at Sumner, though Sam knew he heard.

  We rode through a salt plain, not a creature could live

  The captain saw a village, said the Injuns might give

  Our stomachs were aching—we smiled and said “Please”

  Our tongues were surprised when they fed us on fleas.

  Sumner was still proud of his rhyme “fleas.”

  When they came to the chorus—

  Captain Smith was a wayfarin’ man

  A wanderin’ man was he

  He led us ’cross the desert sands

  And on to the sweet blue sea.

  —Sumner sang his own version again, but Sam couldn’t get it all. He heard some rhymes, something like “Captain he all goosey ’cause he never get no pussy.”

  But now they were to the hard place. New lines were called for. Where would they go? Who was a poet?

  “Something about the Good Book,” Sumner cried out.

  “That’s a dandy idea,” said Evans, and began tossing out rhymes for “book.”

  “Get ‘no water’ in there,” said Sam.

  “Nor beaver,” said Gideon.

  “Get ‘skirt’ in there,” declared Sumner. “No skirt.”

  Everyone started calling out words and phrases, Evans madly combining them into lines. What they came up with was—

  We was lost in that desert, no beaver, no creeks

  Don’t worry, says the captain, we’ll find water next week

  He climbed up a hilltop to get a good look

  And studied his Bible—was there a map in the book?

  Here Evans piped a solo.

  We parleyed with Injuns, we traded tobacco

  We took gals to the willows, and made canyons echo

  And only the captain, with morals full girt

  Missed out on the fun—never lifted a skirt.

  The men loved it, and Jedediah laughed as loud as any.

  Meadowlark just blurted it out one morn
ing, in the dawn light, in the tipi. She seemed to have been waiting for Sam to wake up. When he opened his eyes and saw her looking at him, he started to kiss her.

  She put a hand over his mouth and said in English, “We will have a baby.”

  Sam hooted. “Hot damn.” He considered a moment and half hollered, “Glory be.” These were favorite expressions of his father’s.

  She clapped her hand back over his mouth and held it there. They giggled. She tickled him under the arms. In a few minutes they started trying to make another baby.

  “Let’s make an impression on these Indians,” said Jedediah.

  Sam raised an eyebrow.

  “Let’s show off you and Paladin.”

  It was a good idea. No trapper was all-the-way comfortable about camping with these Amuchabas, and a little awe would help.

  Jedediah, Sam, and Flat Dog built the ring from willow branches. “Fourteen strides across, forty-two feet,” said Sam.

  “Why?” asked Jedediah.

  Sam shrugged. “All I know is, that’s the way circus people run their horses.”

  Before the evening meal, while the light of the late autumn day still lasted, they got the trappers and the Amuchabas assembled.

  Sam was confident. Paladin knew what it meant when he led her into the ring and stood in the center, facing her. Laplant explained in Spanish that Sam was going to give commands to the mare by hand, and she would obey.

  At a lift of one hand Paladin trotted around the ring counter-clockwise. Another gesture and she shifted to a canter. Then, at a signal, down to a walk.

  In response to voice calls she did all three gaits in the opposite direction. By now the Amuchabas were getting involved, and they oohed and aahed.

  Suddenly Sam flung his right hand straight up. Paladin stopped, and reared, and pawed at an imaginary attacker. The hand came down to his side, and Paladin walked to Sam and stood, head down. At a flick of the wrist she walked across the ring and stood facing him, head down.

  Next Sam got the mare to repeat all these same exercises in response to whistles.

  By now the Amuchabas were agog. Jedediah said softly to Sam, “They think it’s magic.”

  Now Sam crossed the ring and mounted Paladin bareback. With his knees alone he guided her through figure eights in the ring. Then he took to the edge of the ring, put her to a full gallop, slid far to her side, and waved at the audience underneath the horse.

  The mountain men roared with laughter. The Amuchabas fell silent in amazement.

  As a crowning trick, he stood up on Paladin’s back and rode her around the ring at a walk.

  Sam spoke to Paladin, and she cantered around the ring. He maintained balance perfectly, rising and falling with her rump.

  At a word she stopped. Sam swept his hat off and bowed to his audience. The trappers whistled and clapped. The Amuchabas looked on gape-mouthed.

  Later Jedediah said, chuckling, “I think it worked.”

  The big romance at this camp was Gideon’s. He and the Shoshone slave woman, Spark, had taken to disappearing into the willows together. Now Spark made the arrangement formal, in her way. She built a hut in the manner of the Amuchabas, of limbs thatched with grass. She traded for enough squash and pumpkins to feast the whole brigade and prepared them in the style of the Amuchabas—she cut a plug in each one, pulled the seeds out, buried the whole fruits under coals, and baked them. She also put Gideon’s blankets and possibles into her hut. No matter how briefly they used their first home, in public view, this was now a marriage.

  As she worked, the big French-Canadian perched himself on a waist-high rock nearby and accompanied her with boisterous fiddling. His peg leg rapped out the beat on the rock.

  “What an odd name, ‘Spark.’” Sam sat down next to Gideon.

  “In Shoshone it no mean spark like the fire,” Gideon said. He wiggled an eyebrow. “But she is.”

  Sam hoped the woman could make a bonfire in Gideon’s heart and loins. Sam had felt uneasy around Gideon for months now. He remembered every detail of his friend’s knee, every vessel and ligament and piece of cartilage, things no human being should ever see. Sometimes he imagined his hands still felt sticky with the blood. His ears still echoed with Gideon’s screams. Oddest of all, he could still feel the dead weight of his friend’s lower leg when he, a pretend surgeon, separated it from the body. Discarding that leg was the most bizarre thing Sam had ever done.

  Worse, he remembered Gideon’s anger about losing his leg. After the surgery, the French-Canadian changed his mind again. Beforehand he’d said loudly, for a week or so, that he’d rather die of gangrene than be a cripple. Then, one evening, he bellowed for them to cut the cursed thing off. So with the help of their compadre James Clyman, Sam reluctantly, carefully, did exactly that. The next few weeks Gideon reverted to complaining that he’d rather be dead.

  This bear man had been the most virile human being Sam had ever known. One of the most interesting too—son of a Cree mother and Jewish father, born near Lake Winnipeg, raised partly in Montreal; master of woodcraft, plains craft, and mountain craft; speaker of Cree, French, English, and Sioux (but not Spark’s Shoshone). Gideon was so electric you couldn’t even imagine him dead.

  Seeing the big man withdraw into himself, sink into black depression, had been painful. Diah’s permission to come on this trip, if he could sit a saddle, had not been an act of hiring a good hand but kindness to a one-legged man. Gideon was still suffering.

  Sam sat beside Gideon on the rock and soaked up the gaiety of the music. He seems happy only when he’s fiddling or carving. And maybe when he makes love to Spark.

  Gideon had finished carving his peg and had taken to carving stray pieces of cottonwood he found on the bank of the river. Now he was cutting a piece into a big sunflower on a long, slender stem, a beautiful piece of work.

  The rest of the camp-wide romance enveloped every man but Sam and Jedediah. The Amuchaba women wore very little and took advantage to the fullest, both with their own tribesmen and fur men. If they had husbands, these men must have been busy having their own fun. Some of the women showed a preference for the men of the lightest skin, but they basically welcomed all the newcomers lustily.

  All of this made Sam nervous. Part of it was that the Amuchaba women flaunted their interest in the fair, white-haired Sam. The rest of it was that the men cast their eyes on Meadowlark.

  Right now everything worried him. He fretted about his wife. The baby was due in April, the way they figured it. They’d worked out how his white-man months turned into her Crow moons.

  What marched right into his mind and took a seat was, This half starving and going without water, it’s bad for a woman with child. He said that or a near equivalent a half-dozen times. The thought of the way they lived on the way down here, the camps without water, the days without food—none of that could be good for Meadowlark or the child growing inside her. Being always on the move, that was bad too. He expressed this bothersome thought to Meadowlark almost every day.

  She always said, “Crow women have been having healthy babies in hungry times and on the road since before the memories of the grandmothers of the oldest women.”

  That didn’t do Sam much good.

  Flat Dog told him the same.

  “She’s moody,” said Sam.

  “Big surprise,” said Flat Dog, grinning.

  “Sometimes she’s grumpy.”

  “Welcome to married life,” said Flat Dog. His English had gotten too damn good.

  To hell with it, Sam said to himself. Here they were on the banks of the Siskadee. Back the way they came was five or six weeks of hard travel. In front of them, across that bad-looking desert to the west, was more hard traveling to some mountains, he didn’t know how many days, and then more traveling to the Spanish settlements. Or so the Indians said. He thought, We’re between the devil and the deep blue sea.

  “Crazy me,” he said to her. “I wanted to go everywhere and see everything. I wanted to stan
d next to the ocean. You just wanted to be with me. Maybe I’ve got us into trouble.”

  “You forget, my love. The one who wanted to stand by the ocean was me. And wade in. And swim down.”

  He was stewing again one morning, and Meadowlark was next to him sleeping, when a scratch came at the door flap.

  Sam put on his breechcloth before he pulled the flap aside. Jedediah. The captain waited wordlessly outside while Meadowlark got into her deer-hide dress. Then they sat by the fire and accepted the tea she brewed for them—an Amuchaba woman had shown her how to make it from local herbs.

  Then to business: “I want to teach you to lead a brigade.”

  Something in Sam’s heart quickened. Meadowlark’s smile told Sam she was happy about it too.

  “I don’t read nor write.”

  Customarily, the second in command was the clerk, who kept the records for the brigade. He noted the name of each man who bought powder and lead, and how much; who took tobacco for trading or ribbon as a gift for a woman; who brought in how many beaver plews, and the like. In due time many segundos became leaders.

  “Doesn’t matter,” said Jedediah. “We can find a man to keep records for you. Why don’t you walk around with me today and learn some things?”

  “Yes.” Sam looked Diah long in the eye. “Good. Fine.”

  As the day went on, it wasn’t just ambition that kept Sam with Jedediah Smith. He discovered something curious—his heart was opening to Diah. Though they’d known each other three and a half years, and had been through hardship after hardship together, they’d never been close, not really.

  In just four years Jedediah had gone from green hand to top man. He’d set himself apart from the others. Never a comrade, never really one of the fellows, he was a distant figure, a man to be respected, not befriended. Now Sam, he was something like a … father.

  They spent the day gathering intelligence about the country. The Amuchabas seemed to have no chiefs, really, but a lot of men knew some of the surrounding territory, and several knew a lot. Some Indians from near the Spanish mission to the west had crossed the desert to become Amuchabas, as of course any sensible person would want to.