“But nobody’s down there, Harland.”
“Doesn’t matter. All they have to do is think they have a gun at their back. That’s deterrent enough.”
Chapter One Hundred-Six
The threshold of the porch at the Blackfoot clinic was something of an obstacle to White Elk, relying heavily on a crutch. The wheelchair ramp entrance beckoned, but he wanted to test his mettle on the steps. Placing the tip of his crutch on the top riser, the elder managed to take a step down, then another so that he could pull up alongside Liz, who was standing alone at the foot of the clinic walk.
“Sinopa tells me you have suffered a great loss.”
Liz simply tipped her head forward.
“I see.”
Liz would not look into the old man’s eyes, as if she were ashamed to gaze upon him.
“Elizabeth?”
“Yes, Benjamin.”
“Would you be kind enough to walk with me to the edge of the village? We can shuffle along together. I would like to see the buffalo. They are nearby.”
The scientist placed a hand on the elder’s shoulder to steady him. Together the pair hobbled over hard-packed wind-scoured snows to the limitless prairie expanse at the eastern edge of the North Piegan village. Black humps inched over the plains. White Elk was pleased that the huge beasts were in close proximity. The Blackfoot propped himself in place upon the crutch and surveyed the great herd, oblivious of a biting wind. The breeze burrowed into Liz’s parka, sending chills through the microfiber-fill to her flesh.
“Do you see them there, Elizabeth?”
Barely audible: “Yes, Benjamin.”
“They have been keeping us alive all these weeks.”
Liz didn’t react to White Elk’s observation.
“They are sustaining us now, body and mind. That is why this old man has recovered quickly and why a woman in her prime, with the terrible injuries you had, has prospered.”
“Sinopa says I should be able to travel now.”
“Ah, that is a good thing.”
“I had hoped to build up enough strength to go to my daughter. But it’s too late. I’ve lost her. I haven’t the strength I thought I had.”
“No, you have more in reserve than you think, Elizabeth. You have only to lay aside your grief when you are ready. Your strength is there for you to draw upon when you will need it.”
“I don’t believe that, Benjamin.” Liz paced a few steps away and revolved to face the Blackfoot elder. She remained quiet for thirty seconds.
“All the things that matter to me, Benjamin, they’ve vanished. My daughter is gone. The life we had together is over.” Liz rubbed moisture from her eyes. “What does someone like me do in a world that has disintegrated?”
White Elk thought it wise to let the woman unburden her soul of its anguish. He remained quiet while Liz, wrapping her torso in her arms, shivered before the force of the prairie wind.
“I have to go.”
“Yes, of course.”
“But I don’t know where to go.”
Benjamin squinted and shook his head. “You must go to where your daughter is resting.”
“I don’t think I can do that,” Liz sobbed.
“There is no alternative, woman.”
“I have to tell you, I’ve decided to go south.”
“South? What is in the south?”
“Yellowstone,” Liz whispered, almost inaudibly.
“Yellowstone?” White Elk rapped his crutch on frozen ground. “Why would you want to go where the earth has come to an end?” he said in a huff.
“I haven’t got the courage to go anywhere else.”
Scowling, White Elk scolded the woman at his side. “You must go to your daughter’s grave. There is no other place you have to be. None!”
“I will, Benjamin, when I think I can face up to it.”
“You must do so now. There is nothing for you at Yellowstone.” White Elk’s voice cut a swath across the prairie landscape.
Liz boxed her head with her hands and bared her teeth. “Yellowstone buried everything. I have to come to terms with that, as a geologist, as human being, as a mother. I can’t feel anything. I want to know why I can’t feel anything.”
“You must give yourself time. And time starts with your little one. You must go to her. There can be no other destination.”
Howling at the stark linear geometry of the plains, Liz ranted, “I want to know why the rocks took precedence over everything, over my daughter. I spent more time at Yellowstone last year than I spent with my Pelee, do you know that? I dropped her on my husband’s doorstep so I could work at the park. My career was everything to me. Yellowstone—I absolutely had to be there.
Liz kicked the snow at her feet, kicked at it as though trying to ward off a rabid fox.
“My daughter got in the way. Can you imagine that? I was grateful that she loved to stay with her father at the farm in Minnesota.”
White Elk turned his back to the woman, inching away to distance himself from her. He studied the behemoths on the horizon, listening to the grunting and lowing of their many voices as they bulldozed the snows to find forage.
“Sinopa and I have talked about the day when you could leave, Elizabeth. Sinopa needs supplies badly for the clinic. She has to go to Calgary, but she delayed her going because of you.”
White Elk frowned in disgust, waving a finger toward the heavens as if ordering the scudding clouds to move on. “You have made your decision. Where you go from here is your business. We will help you get to the airport. That will be the end of it.”
Liz shook her head and wiped tears away. “I’m sorry I am such a disappointment to you.”
“The Siksika, the Kainai and the North Piegan, they all have gone to great lengths to help us. We would do the same for them, the same for you. We would not leave one of our own alone to suffer.”
“Are you all this way, Benjamin?”
“I’ve told you, Elizabeth, this is the way of native peoples. The many help the few. The strong help the weak. As tribe members, this is what we do, what we have always done. We lost our Montana home to the ash, so our brothers and sisters here in Canada took us into their homes. They are helping us make a new life among the buffalo. We all grow stronger. You grow stronger, too. But now I am worried about you, Elizabeth. You are not making sense.”
“Why are you wasting your energy on one white woman? I can’t fathom it.”
“You must know, a buffalo calf alone on the prairie cannot survive even for one day. It must be among its kind. It needs protection; it must be taught, to learn. It needs help every day so it can grow to great size. You see them all out there? There are hundreds of them. The Blackfoot here, there are many. We can’t go through this life alone, any more than the buffalo calf I speak of.”
White Elk tilted forward on his crutch and waved an open palm at the scientist. “You, Elizabeth, you go to your daughter’s grave, and you will find peace in time. Your spirit will heal. But you go to Yellowstone and do you know what you will find there?”
“I don’t know, Benjamin.”
“I know. I will tell you. You will find your heart is empty and cold.”
Chapter One Hundred-Seven
Nothing came of the ultimatum from the National Guard. Through noon the next day and well into the late afternoon, there was little activity on the coop grounds below. Harland felt he had at least won round two of the fight, and there might be time to take a nap. He rolled out an arctic sleeping bag and settled down to see if he could snatch a few hours of rest.
Percy poked the farmer an hour later, the angry red light of a Yellowstone sunset flickering in the headhouse superstructure. The noise of equipment engines rumbled through the building.