Gideon, she thought.
Will, she thought.
Aloud, she shouted, “It’s them, Hadley, they’re here!”
Arms wide, skirts flying, she ran to greet her sons.
VI
Will
The night had turned cool.
Outside the fort, the open tops of the Indian tipis glowed with fires from within, triangular patches of light on the rolling hillside. Occasionally a dog barked, and was answered by another, and yet another, the final bark sounding before the echo of the first had died.
Will was drunk.
He sat against the outside wall of the fort, the baked clay bricks still warm from the day’s sun. There was a bottle of wine in his hand, the third one tonight, most of it already gone. He lifted the bottle to his mouth, and drank from it, and tried to make sense of what had happened, and could make no sense of it. Hell with it, he thought, and drank again, and shook his head, and said, “Shut up,” when a baby down below began crying. He listened to the baby crying.
Cried like a baby himself when they told him. Didn’t suspicion nothing at first. Him and Gideon riding up this morning, Ma running down from the fort, looking like a girl half her age, didn’t even recognize her. Grabbing Gideon to her, and then stretching out her hand: “Will, Will, darlin!” All of them up at the fort later. Pa looking a bit strange. Bobbo sort of standing off to one side. Bonnie Sue hugging them both. It was Gideon who said, “Where’s Annabel?”
He lifted the bottle to his lips again.
He could remember Annabel asking him how was the fighting in Texas. He had been planing a door out back. Had taken it down cause it was sticking in the August heat. Had it set up between two big rocks and was planing it. Curls of white wood coming up from it.
“Well, it wasn’t much good,” he’d said.
“What’d you do there?”
“Just yelled and hollered and shot at people.”
“That don’t sound fun, Will.”
“It wasn’t,” he said. “Much rather go cat-fishin in the Clinch.”
“Then why don’t we?” Annabel asked.
Big grin.
“Why don’t we just?” he said, and put down the plane.
Shit.
You...
You get here and they tell you your baby sister...
The Indian woman came out of the night silently, startling him. His hand jerked. Wine spilled from the bottle tilted to his mouth, dribbled over his chin, splashed onto his shirt. He brushed at the shirt, and looked up at her. “What do you want?” he said...
She was tall and slender, wearing an elkskin dress, the sleeves open and hanging, no beads or quills or ornamentation of any kind, fringed at the bottom where it came to just below her knees. She wore unbeaded moccasins, soft upper flaps turned back like cuffs. Black cotton stockings showed above them, one pulled to her shin, the other falling to her ankle, bunched there above the moccasin cuff. Her hair was black and plaited on either side of her head, the braids held fast with leather thongs. She had high cheekbones painted with solid circles of vermilion. In the moonlight, her eyes were luminous and black.
Approaching him silently, she stood before him and grinned, head tilted to one side, teeth flashing. She put her hands on her thighs as if to dry the palms on the treated hide, but then bent slightly at the knees and grasped the fringed bottom of the skirt in both hands. Standing erect again, she pulled the skirt up over her waist. She was naked under it; he saw the tangled blackness of her crotch an instant before she lowered the skirt again. She smiled in invitation, her brows rising in silent inquiry. Then she extended her hand to him, the fingers curled into a beggar’s bowl.
“Why the hell not?” he said.
There were dogs barking outside the tipi. He watched them warily. Shouldn’t never show your teeth to a dog. Nor any wild animal. Think you were going to attack. Never smile at them. There’s a nice boy, but no smile. She’d been in there four, five minutes already. He’d give her just till he finished the wine, then he’d leave. Chilly out here; no sense waiting in the cold for a whore. No sense to nothing, you wanted to know.
She was coming out of the tipi now. Fat squaw with her. Squaw looked annoyed, like she didn’t want to be chased out here in the cold while the whore entertained a customer. Too bad about you, Will thought, and almost grinned, and remembered the dogs. The dogs were still yapping. Squaw said something to them, didn’t bother them a jot; they just kept at it. She slapped one across the snout. He began whimpering and then shut up. She said something in Indian to the whore then, and the whore nodded. Fat squaw pulled her robe around her, called to the dogs, and went walking over to another tipi. She said something else in Indian and then went inside. The whore was holding open the flap of the tipi here. Will nodded, finished the wine in the bottle, and then crouched and went on in.
There was a fire in the middle; he went to it and held out his hands to the flames. Smoke going up through the hole there in the ceiling or whatever they called it. Painted shield hanging there from one of the poles. Couple of lances. Buffalo robes all over the dirt floor.
“How much’s this gonna cost me?” Will asked.
The woman held up a finger.
“Shit,” he said. “I can get a white woman for that.”
Wasn’t half bad-looking here in the light, though. Wasn’t half good-looking neither. Brown like any other Indian he’d ever seen, lips parched and cracked, sore in the corner of her mouth. Looked like good tits under the elkskin dress.
“I’ll give you half a dollar,” he said.
She shook her head.
“Hell with it then,” he said, and turned to go, and couldn’t find the flap he’d come in by. “Now where...” he said, and realized he was still holding the empty wine bottle, and tossed it aside angrily. Feeling his way around the tipi hand over hand, touching the warm hide walls, he found the opening at last and was crouching to go out when he felt her hand on his shoulder. He looked up. She nodded. “Yeah,” he said, and let the flap fall again. He staggered to his feet and clutched one of the lodge poles for support. “Half a dollar, right?” he said.
She nodded again.
“You understand English, huh?” he said. “How many white men you fucked in your life, huh? You get that sore from a white man?”
She touched her lip, shook her head.
“What is that sore there?”
She held up her hands, the fingers widespread, and shook them back and forth, shaking her head at the same time.
“I don’t have to worry, right?” he said. “Never met a whore yet I didn’t have to worry. Where’d I put that goddamn...?” He was digging in his pocket for a fifty-cent piece, couldn’t find one by just the feel of it, and pulled out a handful of coins. Opening his palm, he held out the coins to her and said, “Take a half dollar, go ahead.”
She lifted a coin from his palm.
“That’s right,” he said, and put the other coins back in his pocket. “What’s your name?” he asked.
She shook her head.
“If you don’t know it in English, say it in Indian.”
She shook her head again.
He shrugged. First time he’d ever in his life asked a whore her name, and she wouldn’t tell him. He shrugged again. Hell with her, he thought.