Hurriedly I shoved the bills into my pocket. “Thank you,” I said, and it felt strange to thank your thief, but I was thankful.
I walked back to the big room, eager to tell my father we were done, we could go, but he was in the process of being head-butted. He sprawled backward against the wall. Facing off with him was the small, wiry, dog man I’d been sweating over earlier.
Ned Plaskett was on his feet and hurrying over. I ran too.
My father dragged in a breath, and there was a crazed look in his eyes, which I knew was elation.
“Come on, then!” he shouted. “If you’re such a sore loser, sir, I’ll blacken both your eyes!”
“And I’ll gouge yours right from their sockets!” bellowed the little terrier, and the way he flexed his thumbs made he realize he was completely sincere.
What happened in the next seconds was impossible to describe in any orderly way. I knew I was throwing myself at the little man from behind, as was Ned. We were dragging him away from my father, and then all I knew was a flurry of fists against me, and boots, and I was lashing out at I don’t know who, just trying to keep myself from getting dragged to the floor. A great crack silenced everyone.
Swiping blood from my nose, I saw a man standing on the bar with a smoking shotgun.
“That’s enough!” he bellowed. “Now, you, sir.” He pointed at the dog man, whose eyes bulged from his skull. “You pay what you owe! And both of you”—the gun swung to include my father—“get out of my place!”
The vicious little terrier spat and then took some money from his pocket and threw it on the floor at my father’s feet. With as much dignity as he could muster, my father picked up the bills and counted them.
“This is not enough,” he said.
I pressed up close to him and whispered, “We have enough. Let’s go.”
For a scary moment I thought he was going to keep brawling, but he looked at his torn lapel and ripped sleeve and let Ned and me escort him to the entrance of the saloon. We made our way toward the hotel. I turned back to see the little man standing outside, smoking with two of his friends, watching us.
“You did well?” Father asked me.
I nodded. “Between us we’ve got enough for the team, plus a little extra.” I decided I wouldn’t tell him how much I had exactly. I’d keep the rest to myself, in case of emergency.
“Now, before we head out,” said Plaskett, “we need to get you and your boy a rifle, maybe a pistol, too.”
I was nodding, because I wanted a pistol of my own. I knew it was in vain. My father inhaled regally. “That won’t be necessary, Mr. Plaskett. I hate the things. I’m a pacifist.”
I said nothing, just pinched my nose to stop the blood. Father did hate guns, though. It wasn’t just Quaker belief that made him feel this way. During the war he’d worked in field hospitals and treated his share of men left limbless.
“You’ve got an excellent left hook for a pacifist,” said Plaskett. “Anyway, the Sioux can be savage.”
“Seems it’s the white man we’ve got to worry about,” Father replied.
“There’s them, as well. You’re sure?”
Father nodded.
“Well, if you don’t mind, sir,” Plaskett said, “I’ll be holding on to my rifle.”
“By all means, Mr. Plaskett.”
“Let’s go settle things with Mr. Collins, and then I’d stick to your hotel tonight. Just to avoid any unpleasantness. We’ll head out first thing tomorrow.”
PART II
THE BADLANDS
HE RETURNED TO HIS PEOPLE A MAN. THEY MADE A sweat lodge with buffalo robes draped over willow branches. In the middle of the sage-covered floor, rocks hot from the fire were set down. Water was poured over them. Afterward his body was anointed with sacred sage and his hair braided. He performed a dance, because he could not understand or use the power of his vision until he had acted it out.
In his dance he told the story of how he had fought with a horned serpent that had escaped the lightning of the Thunder Birds. The serpent tried to drag him down into the earth, but he defeated it and took one of its teeth as his trophy. It was the length of a man’s foot, sharp at the tip. He called it, and the creature it came from, the Black Beauty.
He made a special pouch so he could carry it with him on the hunt. With each buffalo that crumpled before him the tooth would get heavier, until his horse tired from the weight. He had once been weak, but now he was strong, and a great hunter.
When he rode into battle naked, he slung the tooth across his chest and was never wounded. Some said the tooth could be shot magically like an arrow. At least two men swore they’d seen him pulling it from the chests of those he had killed.
He was beloved but also feared. Only he could use the tooth, because he had found it in his vision.
9.
BURIAL OBJECTS
EVEN FROM A DISTANCE I COULD SEE THEM rising above the plain: wooden platforms supported by slender posts with a few cross braces. They appeared weathered and rickety, and I was amazed they hadn’t collapsed or been toppled by some animal. The sun had bleached them so that they seemed almost like natural formations, emanating a forlorn power. Our two Pawnee Indian scouts circled around them and started riding back toward us to report.
I was riding astride. Some of the Yale students and cavalry had looked mildly horrified this morning at Fort Crowe when I’d mounted a pony in my split skirt. But Father had been distracted with something or other and had just said “yes yes” a few times—maybe to comfort himself—and left it at that. Landry the journalist had made a note. I liked the idea of being written up, my boldness proclaimed in a magazine.
I was quickly growing accustomed to this new way of riding. My thighs ached a bit, and the small of my back, too, but there was a great pleasure in being aligned with the horse, balanced, my gaze dead ahead, with both legs able to grip the horse’s flanks. This was the way women were meant to ride.
I rode at the forefront of the column with Papa and Lieutenant Frye. Behind us were Mr. Landry and the students, and then the cavalry. And behind them came six wagons. Bringing up the rear were more soldiers. In all there were fifty-four of us, and I worried we looked more like a military force than a scientific expedition.
All day we’d made steady progress across the rolling prairie toward the badlands. We’d reach it tomorrow, the lieutenant said. Every so often I thought I saw a horse and rider on the wavering horizon, and sometimes my imagination shaped it into Samuel Bolt.
I kept remembering his discouraged face at the grocer’s; it was such a different expression from the one he’d had in the parlor car when he’d leaned in close and told me about my eyes. Had he found the provisions he needed in the end? I felt sorry for him, but it wasn’t my fault. And I needed to remind myself I had more important things to think about. I was here to dig fossils and dig my heels into the future I wanted—a very different one from the one Papa saw for me. So, this summer I was going to prospect and find fossils and make him realize I was better than any of his students. Still, I hoped Samuel had been able to get kitted out, and go find the owner of his tooth.
The Pawnee scouts had returned now and were talking with Lieutenant Frye. When I’d first seen the Indians at the fort, they were wearing US Army uniforms, but a few hours out, they’d replaced them with their traditional breechclouts and leggings. None of the officers seemed to mind. I’d seen illustrations of Indians in books and magazines, but these were the first I’d seen with my own eyes. I was very struck by their appearance, their fine dark hair parted in the middle and gathered into two braids, their skin like burnished wood.
“Sioux burial platforms,” Lieutenant Frye told us. “That’s what they do with their dead out here.”
Closer now, I made out a body-size bundle of hide atop the closest platform. Ten yards distant were two more burial platforms.
“They’re Lakota,” said one of the Pawnee scouts, whose name was Duellist. The lieutenant had told me h
is Pawnee name earlier but too quickly for me to remember it. Duellist, apparently, was a reference to his skill as a warrior. He had a high forehead, a proud straight nose, and a wide mouth that always had an amused tilt to it. He was almost a head taller than his fellow scout, a burly fellow named Best-One-of-All, after his abilities as a hunter. The pictures I’d grown up with had always made the Indians look very fierce, and in the stories they spoke very little and in broken English. I was surprised and impressed at how well both our guides spoke. And they talked as much as anyone, though mostly to each other in their own complicated-sounding language. I’d heard plenty of laughter.
But I still felt shy when I asked, “Why is one platform apart from the others?”
Duellist looked at me. “Maybe sickness. Or he was a bad man maybe, and they feared him.”
“Let’s have a look, gentlemen!” said my father enthusiastically.
“You won’t want to see this,” Daniel Simpson said to me with a sympathetic wince. He was a doughy Yale student with punishingly bad breath.
“Do you think I’ve never seen a dead body before?” I asked.
“But a dead human?” asked Hugh Friar. He was the handsomest of the students and knew it. His shoulders had a pleasing breadth, and he had a fine brow and the profile of a Roman emperor on a coin. He pointed at a lone tree. “There’s some shade over there, Miss Cartland. While you’re waiting.”
I urged my pony to the nearest platform, the solitary one, and stood up in the stirrups. The platform was at chin level, but I wanted an even closer view. There were many benefits of being raised by a distracted father, and one of them was tree climbing. My pony was a steady little fellow, and I kicked out of my stirrup and swung my leg over the saddle. Grabbing hold of the platform, I pulled myself up.
It swayed alarmingly, and for a moment I worried I’d bring it all crashing down. The students below may have gotten a flash of my calves, but I didn’t care. I was up and crouched beside the shrouded body.
With satisfaction I saw Hugh and Daniel looking up at me askance.
“You’ll injure yourself, miss!” called Lieutenant Frye.
“Well, she’s up there now, and faster than any of you lot,” my father said to his students.
I smiled to myself, glad my father had noticed. But I was a bit wary now. I’d never actually seen a human corpse—unless you counted Aunt Berton. There was no smell except the leathery odor of its shroud.
“Unwrap it!” called out my father, who was bringing his own pony alongside one of the other platforms.
I took hold of the shroud, and then hesitated, not so much because I was afraid, but because I caught sight of Duellist watching me from a distance. His mouth no longer had an amused tilt. I felt suddenly ill at ease. I’d just clambered on top of a funeral platform to prove I wasn’t some squeamish girl, to please my father, to satisfy my own curiosity—and for the first time I wondered if I’d done something disrespectful.
“Is it all right?” I asked.
“Go ahead, yes yes,” I heard my father cry out.
But I wasn’t looking at him; I was still watching Duellist, and it was impossible to read his expression. Part of me wanted to come down, but I was worried if I did, my father and the others would think I’d lost my nerve, that I wasn’t cut out for life in the field.
“You needn’t worry about offending our scouts, Miss Cartland,” said Lieutenant Frye pleasantly. “The Pawnee and Sioux are longtime enemies. Isn’t that right, Duellist?”
At this, Duellist nodded and turned his horse away. That nod was something at least. Hesitantly I parted the shroud. The body was mummified, the flesh and tissue tautened to a thin gray film over the skull. It looked as if his skin had been painted red. A burial ritual? The head was twisted at an odd angle on its corded neck.
I glanced over at Papa and some of his students clambering atop the other platforms.
“I’d say this body is about two years old,” Papa bellowed. “Buried with his shotgun, and a deck of cards.” He lifted these things high with a chuckle. “No doubt customary for them yes yes to be buried with their prized possessions.”
I parted my covering some more and found a small bundle against the chest. I was curious to see what was inside, but again I felt a prick of shame at the idea of handling someone’s treasured things.
Standing tall in his stirrups, Lieutenant Frye did it for me. “A harmonica,” he said as he pulled items from the bundle. “And some kind of ceremonial dagger. Looks like stone. Quite handsome!”
“Well, boys,” Papa called out, “these bodies aren’t exactly the prehistoric specimens we’ve come for, but we’ll never be able to determine the origins of the Indian race without their heads. Pass me up a hacksaw, will you, Hendrickson?”
I looked over at Papa in shock. “Don’t you think we should leave them in peace now?!”
Some of his students looked uneasy, but none said a word.
Irritably Papa shaded his eyes and squinted over at me. “They’re already at peace, my dear. We’re simply studying their earthly remnants for the benefit of science.”
“You’d never dig up bodies from the New Haven cemetery and decapitate them.”
My father laughed heartily, as did some of the soldiers and students. I felt my cheeks heat up. They thought me a silly little thing now.
“I would if there was any scientific need, my dear. Right here we have a completely different race that needs studying.”
“What about common decency?” It cost me to say this, since I could tell his patience with me was already worn thin. He simply ignored me.
“I’ll tell you a tale, if I may, Miss Cartland,” said the lieutenant softly, still astride his pony beside the platform. “The Sioux are fierce warriors. Several months ago, during a night skirmish, we were outnumbered and had to retreat. We had two dead and didn’t want to leave them in the open for the Sioux to massacre, so we dug graves and wrapped them in blankets and buried them. We scattered branches and grass on top to conceal the fresh earth. But when we came back for them next morning, we found the bodies dug up and stripped of their blankets and possessions. One man was scalped; another had his finger cut off for the wedding ring. Now, that is not what I call common decency. The fact is, they play by different rules than us.”
“Maybe so,” I said. “But it seems we don’t really know very much about their rules at all.”
He smiled and said nothing, and I did not find him quite as handsome as I had last night at dinner in the commander’s house.
“Where’s that saw, boys?” my father hollered. “Never mind, my bowie knife should do the trick. There’s not much sinew left.”
“Please, don’t!” I cried out.
Our Pawnee scouts looked on impassively as my father hacked away, and I wondered what they must be thinking. Even if the Pawnee and Sioux did despise each other, they were both inhabitants of the Great Plains. Surely they had more in common with each other than with us. Here we were, taking heads like something we meant to mount on a wall. Did Duellist and Best-One-of-All wonder if we might just as easily do the same to their people?
My father snapped the skull from the neck and passed it down to Roger Kinney, who was ready with a burlap sack. I felt disgusted by all of this, by myself, up here scrambling around on someone’s grave. I wanted to get down now.
From the corner of my eye, I thought I saw the silhouette of a horse and rider atop a distant ridge. But when I turned, there was nothing there but an oily smear of heat.
“Did you see that?” I asked the lieutenant. “On the rise?”
He looked back at me with a shake of his head.
“A horse and rider, I thought.”
“Could be.” He stepped his pony over to Duellist and Best-One-of-All and had a word with them.
“Leave their trinkets alone,” my father told his students. “We’re not grave robbers.”
Under my breath I said, “No, just headhunters.”
I started to cl
ose the bundle on the body’s chest and took a last look at the stone knife—and then looked harder. It was nearly eight inches long, silvery black, remarkably smooth. The hilt appeared to have been snapped off, leaving a jagged base, and then I realized it was not stone at all. The sun was hot on me, and the crescendo of the cicadas made me feel even hotter and suddenly sick. I hoped no one was watching. I knew I shouldn’t, but I couldn’t stop myself. I became a grave robber and took it.
On my hands. On my neck. On my face. Smack. Down my collar, up my sleeves, under the damp brim of my hat. Slap. The mosquitoes came at me like a biblical plague. In the hammering heat, as we crossed the prairie, I breathed them in and spat them out. They were the biggest I’d ever seen. Surprisingly muscular as they hunched against my skin. No matter how I swatted and cursed, they came. As maddening as my buzzing thoughts.
I wanted to get to the badlands fast. But there was only so fast you could trot or walk a pony all day, especially with a heavy wagon at the rear. I kept looking back over my shoulder. Worried Cartland and his students and his army would come storming past, whooping and singing and leaving us in their dust. No. They were going to the fort first. We’d have a day or two on them. But they were coming. Whack. Not Rachel’s fault. But I couldn’t help feeling outsmarted. Made no sense. I eased my chafed bottom off the saddle for a second. Wasn’t used to riding for so long. I didn’t want Cartland here, but I couldn’t help feeling glad Rachel was.
“Those bugs seem to have a taste for you,” Father said, riding serenely alongside me.
I looked at him, bewildered. “Why aren’t they all over you?”
He shrugged. “There’s no explaining some things. Amazing creatures, mosquitoes. There was an incident I once read about, of a cow that died of exsanguination.”
I slapped again at my blotched and blood-streaked face. “Which means?”
“Total loss of blood. It was found completely withered.”
“Why are you telling me this now?!”