Far as the Eye Can See Read online

  Once again, for Denny—

  I will study wry music for your sake . . .

  Contents

  Western United States and Territories in the 1870s

  Prologue

  Part One

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Part Two

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Part Three

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Part Four

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Chapter 28

  Chapter 29

  Chapter 30

  A Note on the Languages Used in this Book

  Acknowledgments

  A Note on the Author

  By the Same Author

  Prologue

  Ink

  March, 1876

  From a break in the rocks where I stand, the country is as big as any whole earth I ever dreamed of. When you’re heading west, into this country, you don’t get a sense of its size because you don’t know where it ends. It’s open and wide, of course, but you got this notion of finding the other side of it. Once you been here, and the years pass, you get used to it—to spaces surrounded by blue mountains that pile so high, you can’t believe a man can walk in them. So when you find yourself feeling like you ought to skedaddle out of it as soon and fast as you can, it hits you how endless and gigantic it is.

  And I feel like if I don’t get out, I might get killed by either the army or the Indians. It may be both of them species of animal is after me. Until a few days ago, I was scouting for General Gibbon, coming from Fort Ellis in Bozeman, Montana Territory. He told me that soon Custer will come from the east and Reno from the south and we would settle the Indian question once and for all. But then I done something just by accident really and now I’m trying my damnedest to avoid Indians and Cavalry alike.

  The trail stretches so far in front of me, everything in the distance fades to blue. You can barely see where the sky meets the ground. Some rolling purple clouds clamor in the farthest corner, light up with blue fire and a rumbling, and I know it’s rain miles and miles from here, but it moves, like a train sometimes.

  I got my horse, Cricket, next to me and she’s lame. I’m tired, and sweat soaks through my clothing, so I would welcome a little rain. And I see something moving up the path in front of me, way up in front of me. Rocks rise up slightly on my right, and to the left is a great boulder that makes good shade and shelters me from the sun. The path is thick with brush and patches of thicket full of thorns and dry, twisted branches, but it’s a path, and way beyond the two knobs of hill in front of me, I see him coming along on foot. A dark, thin shadow that might be a Indian or not. I can’t tell. I stop moving, though. For my money, a soldier’s just as dangerous as a Indian.

  I don’t make much of a shadow because the sun is in front of me. I’ve been standing here, trying to figure out how I can drag a lame horse up that path. I’m trying to go west, to Bozeman, where I hope the only woman I ever known that treated me like a important somebody, like I ain’t a skunk, is waiting for me. Her name is Eveline and that particular appellation all by itself is music to me. I promised her I would be finished with this here expedition in the spring—June the latest—and then I’d leave the army here and head back to her. She said she would wait that long. She and her sister, Christine, want to go all the way to Oregon, and I signed on to take them there, if I can get back to Bozeman in time. Eveline said she would hope for me. You might say we are betrothed, even though we ain’t said nothing about it out loud. With her, I might just find a way to save myself. Eventually I want to get away far enough that maybe I can live for a while in a house, near a ocean, and I won’t wake up to the smell of horse manure, wet hay, and pigweed. I won’t have to contend with the constant buzzing of blackflies, neither. But mostly now all I want is to go where nobody wants to kill me, and I’ll have a fine good woman to take care of me.

  Where the dark clouds hover it looks blue, and wet. And cool. I want to feel cool air again.

  I don’t feel like hiding, but I pull Cricket back and settle down in the curve of rock and high boulder just off the path. I figure I’ll wait here and see who that is. Out in the middle of the whole world, not a buzzard or a jackrabbit in sight, and here walks this fellow. I set there for a while—watch the sun move above me and a bit down west. Then I get impatient. I move out into the path to see how far the fellow has to go, but now he ain’t there no more. I can’t see a damn thing except a few clumps of weed and juniper bush. He hides now, or he wants to creep up on me.

  I move back to my horse and get my pistol and rifle. I carry a army-issue Colt .44 pistol and a carbine I bought a few years after the war ended. It’s called a Evans repeater. It looks exactly like a Spencer repeating rifle, but it ain’t. That specific breed of weapon only holds seven rounds. This here carbine holds thirty-four rounds of ammunition. When I fire it and then pull the curly cue handle on it, it ejects one shell and loads another, just like the Spencer, only faster. I can hold off a small army if I have to. I got a good strap on it so I can carry it over my shoulder.

  I move around the other side of the rock. I can keep moving that way, but then it hits me I might do better to scale to the top of the boulder and look down on everything. So I take off my boots and socks, stick the pistol in my belt, sling the carbine over my shoulder, and start climbing. The stone is smooth and hot, but I get hold of a few small creases in it, and my bare feet and toes dig in on that flat surface a lot better than a pair of leather-soled boots. It takes a while but I get to the top, laying on my belly. From up there I can see a long way. The country curves up a little, but a lot less than I thought when I was standing on the flat ground looking at it. It’s not really a hill at all but a long, gentle slope toward the west, with scrub grass, juniper bushes, and other brambles scattered like sleeping cattle on both sides of the path. To my left, the ground rises up slightly more, and the bushes give way to rocks and falling sand that empties at the foot of the boulder I’m laying on. I can’t see a thing but I know he’s somewhere out there, not moving. I make up my mind I’ll lay here as long as it takes. He’ll have to move sometime. Then I see him on my left, laying flat on the ground, moving between two bramble bushes as swiftly as a snake. He’s coming for me, all right, trying to get around behind me.

  He has to be a Indian. It makes my skin prickle watching how swiftly he can move on his belly. I take the carbine and aim it carefully. He stops moving, but I can still see a brown patch of what’s got to be skin, above the lighter brown leggings he wears. I can hit him right in the middle if I don’t waste no time, so I squeeze off a round. I see dirt kick up just where his body meets the ground, and he rolls over and disappears. It’s like he dropped into the ground or something. I can’t be sure I hit him. I stay low and get ready for another shot. The carbine made enough noise and left enough smoke in the air, he’ll have no trouble seeing where the shot come from, so I’m ready for him. I get as flat and close to that rock as I can, still aiming the carbine in that direction. I hear Cricket shutter and stomp. I don’t like it that she’s down there where I can’t see her, and my boots are there, my saddle. I remember, too, that Cricket pulled up limping,
and I don’t like that problem, neither. It’s a bad time all over again and I am suddenly pretty exercised about it. “Damnation,” I say to nobody but the air. Nothing moves in front of me. Except for the ringing in my ears from the damn carbine, there ain’t no sound. I concentrate on the patch of ground where I seen the Indian roll into oblivion. I wonder if a dark spot there on the ground is blood or just the shadow of one of the juniper bushes.

  I don’t know how long I wait there looking for something to move, but finally I decide I have to get down off that rock and go looking. The first thing I do when I’m back on the ground is put my boots back on. My horse hangs her head low, looks at me. I untie her, remove the bridle and the saddle and all my gear. I do this without looking away from the dark side of that boulder, where I know the Indian will have to come if he’s coming.

  “Go on, Cricket,” I say. “Eat what you can find, girl. We’ll camp here for a while.” She seems to nod, but she don’t go nowhere. “Suit yourself,” I say.

  Then I pick up the carbine and sling it over my shoulder again. I hold the pistol in my hand, ready to shoot, and move around to the left of the boulder, into the shadow. I stay low as I can and keep my eyes ahead of me. I look for any movement. I’ll shoot the first twitter of light or dark I see. I’m that wound up. It feels just like it always felt going into battle in the war. Like my whole body is cold with seeing and feeling, every square inch ready. My heart’s a stuttering bag.

  I don’t get too far from my horse before I see him. He’s crouched in a small ravine, behind a thick clump of grass, laying on his side, his legs drawed up, his back to me, not moving. From where I stand, he looks like a small, rectangular rock. It’s no wonder I couldn’t see him from the top of that boulder. If not for his black hair, I might of kept on toward him thinking he’s a rock, but I stop in my tracks and wait.

  I think to shoot him again, but then I want to see if he’ll move. I hope I got him with the one shot. I learned in the army there ain’t no use in wasting bullets. So I watch him for a while, and when he don’t move, I step a little closer to him. I’m maybe ten feet away when I hear him groan. That’s when I know. No man ever made a sound like that. It’s a woman, and she’s crying to beat all, holding every breath of it, trying not to make no noise.

  “Aw, Jesus,” I say, and she screams. She didn’t know how close I was. I crouch down and move to where I can see her face. She grimaces in pain and the whole front of her is covered in blood. She screams again when she sees me.

  “Aw, Jesus,” I say again. “I’m sorry.” It’s a young girl, scrawny and dark. Long strands of wet black hair cover her eyes and run down into her mouth. She wears leather pants and shirt, and beads around her neck. She clutches a heavy pouch. She has a big hunting knife sheathed in leather, tied to her waist. I put the carbine down and kneel next to her. I’m afraid to touch her, but I got to see the wound. “Here,” I say, and I reach out and touch her on the shoulder. “Let me see.”

  She looks at me, still breathing heavy, still frightened so completely her eyes dart like a trapped animal’s eyes, but she don’t move when I touch her. There’s something real fierce in her fear, if you know what I mean. Like she’ll quiver and all, but if I make a wrong move I’ll have that hunting knife to contend with. “You speak American?” I whisper. I smell urine. Her nose runs badly with mucus and her hair is all tangled in it. The eyes are dark, and yellow-rimmed. “Iisáakshi-m,” I say. “I thought you was a young man.” I know a little Crow and not much else of Indian languages. “Maybe you speak Crow?”

  She closes her eyes, then whispers, “English.”

  “I’m glad of it,” I say. Gently I try to unfold her, get her to lay on her back, but she won’t budge.

  “Let me see the wound.”

  She moves one of her arms down, then turns slightly, and I see where I got her. She’s hit in the side, all right, but it went along the front of her abdomen. She was laying in such a way that the bullet come in low and skimmed under her skin in front and out the other side. I hit flesh and only flesh. It burned her—I can see the skin black and still smoking a bit—and she is bleeding, but if I clean it up a bit, it won’t kill her.

  “You’ll be all right,” I say. I am really glad I didn’t take another shot when I first seen her. “What the hell are you doing out here all by yourself?”

  She’s stopped crying and sniffling but I can see she’s still in a lot of pain. I move some of the hair out of her face, and she opens her eyes and maybe sees me for the first time. I mean, she studies my face real hard. Her dark skin and black eyebrows make her look almost unnaturally evil, but it don’t scare me none. I never have believed in stuff I can’t see or hear or taste or smell or touch. I don’t believe in no devil nor demons. I think we’re all bad enough here on earth—we don’t need no outside help, if you know what I mean. I seen a lot of men praying and I seen them dying. Didn’t seem to matter if they was believers or not. A bullet don’t care what a fellow believes, and for sure folks don’t give a damn, neither.

  The woman is helpless and small, wounded and needful. I can leave her here and she might die, but I ain’t gonna do that. Damn it, I know I ain’t gonna do that. I say to her, “You’ll be all right. I’ll take care of you.”

  She watches me put the pistol in my belt and then put the sling on the carbine over my head so the gun is across my back. “I’m going to try and help you up,” I say. “You got no broke bones and you should be able to walk.” I lift her up, and she comes easily enough, though she lets out this little whimper of pain—or maybe it’s fear. “I know you’re hurt,” I say.

  She says nothing, she just looks at me. Now her eyes are sad and kind of pitiful looking. I feel sorry for her. “You’re going to be all right,” I say. We move along pretty slowly. She takes little baby steps but then starts to move a little better. She holds her arm and hand across where her belly is ripped and the blood still runs. It looks almost black on her leather pants. I know she’s really hurting but she don’t cry out no more, and I’m starting to think she’s a lot tougher than she looks. “I’m sorry I shot you.”

  No response.

  “You’re so thin, it’s a damn miracle the bullet skimmed under the skin like that.”

  She don’t even look at me.

  “Why was you trying to sneak around behind me?”

  She shakes her head and says something so drowned in tears and heavy breathing, I can’t understand it. I think she said she wasn’t doing no such thing.

  “I thought you was trying to get behind me.”

  “I just wanted to go around,” she gasps. She speaks American clear as a bell.

  “You speak real good American,” I say. “Where you from?”

  She coughs, then spits on the ground in front of us. I stop and check the little globule of spit close. “Ain’t no blood in it,” I say. “You’re gonna be all right.”

  She wipes her nose, pulls some of the matted hair away from her face. She has wide cheekbones and a thin-lipped mouth. The skin around her top lip is so dark, it looks almost like a small mustache. Her lips are thin and pink.

  We scoot back to where I’d let Cricket loose. She’s not far off. I let the girl ease down on the ground again and rest her head on my saddle. “Just wait there,” I tell her. Then I go to my saddlebag and get a clean piece of calico—I rip the back out of one of my shirts—and a ball of twine and a sewing needle. I got a bottle of whiskey in there and I grab that too. I don’t think the calico is gonna be big enough to wrap her. I pour a little whiskey on both wounds, clean them up as best I can. She has a long bruise that runs from one hole across her abdomen just under her belly button and right up to where the bullet went out. The skin there is tore all to hell. I use the twine to sew it up. She don’t move or bat a eye while I’m rooting around in that bloody thing. And right up to the second I close it up she was sure bleeding out of that hole. Much more than where the bullet gone in. It’s a good thing my shot was low. If I’d aimed just a inch
or two higher, she’d of sure died. The bullet would of cut her right in two. I tell her as much, but she’s out cold by the time I finish wrapping the calico tightly around her middle. It fits better than I believed it would. I don’t know if she’s asleep or if she passed out.

  She’s just a thick ball of black hair and, hanging underneath that, a sad, round face and just a slip of a body. I guess she needs something to eat. All I have is a sack of dried beans, a little raw sowbelly, a bag of coffee and sugar cubes, a few strips of beef jerky, and some hardtack. I go back to where her pouch is and find some leather leggings, some more dried beans, and a piece of sowbelly that looks to be at least a half a year old. It stinks to high heaven, but it will cook up just fine. I take it all back and set it down at her feet.

  In a little while, Cricket comes back, looking lame as ever and disappointed.

  “What’s the matter, old girl? Nothing much to eat around here, is there.” The Indian girl thinks I was talking to her. She opens her eyes a little and frowns. “Not you,” I say.

  I think she might start crying again, but she reaches for my hand and tries to pull herself up. It’s just too much pain.

  “You’re all bruised up down there,” I say. “You won’t be able to use them muscles for a spell.”

  She takes a deep breath, then looks at me like a hungry puppy. “Help me up,” she says.

  I try to be gentle but it hurts her to bend like that. I set her up against the saddle with her feet splayed out in front of her. She points to the blood on her moccasins.

  “Dripped on them while we was walking,” I say. “But you ain’t bleeding no more.”

  It looks like the saddle is causing her sizable pain. “You want me to lay you back down again?”

  “No.”

  “Looks like it’s hard to get air. You having trouble breathing?”

  “No.”

  “It must just be the pain, then.” I set there looking at her, wondering what I might do next.